


Doing the Unstuck

by slipgoingunder



Series: Doing the Unstuck [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Genre: 404 Luke Skywalker Not Found, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Chuck Tingle - Freeform, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gender or Sex Swap, Happy Ending, I'm sorry Nora Ephron, Mention of a professor/student relationship between Luke and Rey, Mentions of Rey and Ben having sex with others but not while they're in a relationship, Minor F/F Rey with others, Minor Finn/Rose Tico, Minor Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux, Nonmonogamous Relationship, POV Multiple, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Discussions, Rey has daddy issues and mommy issues, Reylo - Freeform, Road Trips, Romantic Comedy, Serious Luke character assassination, Sexting, Sexual Tension, Smut, Texting, alternate universe - when harry met sally, the force is sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-07-06 02:57:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 136,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15877074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipgoingunder/pseuds/slipgoingunder
Summary: A rom com inspired by When Harry Met Sally. (No, you do not need to have seen the movie to read this.) Modernized, gender swapped, angsty and funny.Rey is Harry. Ben is Sally.--In 2010, Rey and Ben share a contentious car ride from Chicago to New York, during which they argue about everything. Including sex.Four years and another chance meeting later, both their lives have taken unexpected twists.In 2018, Rey and Ben meet for a third time, each fresh off a break up. They continue to argue, but in a nice way. So nice, in fact, that they become good friends. Complicated friends. Complicated friends whodefinitelydo not want to have sex.





	1. Electric Feel

**Author's Note:**

> After the first few chapters, there are many realistic looking iPhone text messages in this fic, so I recommend reading this in Ao3, preferably with the default styling (meaning it'll look best on something with a light background). It should still be legible with a reader, though!
> 
>  
> 
> This is a [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum/works) production. It started with a joke, but here we are. Go read everything she's written because it's all amazing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He feels a flash of resentment, imagining how Han would respond to Rey’s genuine interest in this stupid trash pile on wheels. They’d probably converse easily about the pneumatic struts.
> 
>  
> 
> _How the fuck am I still jealous of a fucking recreational vehicle?_
> 
>  
> 
> He takes a breath. Sometimes it helps when he feels himself start to spiral, but more often than not, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
> 
> “I hope this isn’t going to be one of those trips with a lot of long, awkward silences,” Rey says, coming back up to the front.
> 
> “Yeah, me too,” Ben agrees, even though his life is a series of long, awkward silences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum/works) production. It started with a joke, but here we are. Go read everything she's written because it's all amazing. 
> 
> A huge thank you to [reylocalligraphy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylocalligraphy/pseuds/reylocalligraphy/works) for swooping in to beta the first giant chunk of this.

 

“Ok. This is it.” Finn drops Rey’s enormous duffel next to the slightly less-enormous duffel on the curb of the tree-lined campus drive. “You’re really leaving me.”

“ _You_ changed your major senior year. Just hurry up and finish those credits, ok?” She pauses, gathering up her light brown hair into a messy top knot.. “Am I pulling off an effortless ‘I just woke up like this’ vibe?"

“You definitely look like you just woke up,” he says, eyeing her shorts and ancient t-shirt. “So, yes.” He tugs on her bun. “No effort.”

There’s a tightness in her throat. She hadn’t even wanted Finn to bring her stuff down to the curb, but he’d insisted on seeing her off.

Despite her natural tendency to keep a safe— _but friendly_ —distance from most people, she and Finn had grown close since becoming roommates last year. He doesn’t know _everything_ , but he knows enough. And he doesn’t push. Rey loves him for that.  In a universe where Rey has plenty of close friends and less trauma, she would probably let the friendship blossom into something more. But he’s as close to family as she has. That’s enough.

“The untied shoelace is a nice touch,” he says, nodding at her foot.

“Thank you, I watched YouTube tutorial on boho chic lacing techniques,” Rey deadpans, bending down to tie her sneaker.

The loud rumble of a large vehicle disrupts their comfortable banter. A shadow the size of a building washes over the ground in front of her. And she’s suddenly aware that her ass is probably perfectly framed by the driver’s side window. She finishes the double knot as quickly as possible. But not quite fast enough.

The driver clears his throat. Rey hastily straightens up.

She hasn’t actually met Ben Solo, but she’s heard plenty: from the grad students in her department (“ridiculously intense,” “a hot contrarian”); from Finn, who’d been in his section of Elementary Logic (“he’s a condescending monster,” “he somehow always knows when you didn’t do the reading”); and, of course, bits and pieces from Luke.  

And she’s seen his photo on a flyer for some philosophy lecture. It’s actually an ultra-serious, dramatically lit black-and-white headshot. He’s even wearing a turtleneck. It had reminded her of those pretentious pictures of Steve Jobs, except that Ben Solo has a full head of hair. _Really shiny touchable-looking hair._  She’s so familiar with the flyer that she can’t picture him in living color. She has thought about that photo more times than she cares to admit.

When she turns around, she doesn’t even see him right away.  An enormous beast of a vehicle blocks her view instead. It’s a dark red retro-futurist looking RV with the words “Millennium Falcon” painted across the driver’s side in a font that’s pure kitsch.

She staggers backward, trying to take it all in.

When Luke had mentioned Ben driving his father’s van back to New York, she’d pictured a...Dodge Caravan or something. But _this..._ this is amazing. Finn mutters a soft “Holy shit” behind her.

Running her hand along the side panel, she admires the finest exterior styling the 1980s had to offer. Growing up a bit of a gearhead in the Arizona desert, she’d seen her fair share of unusual motorhomes roll into town every winter.

 _But this is something else._ _A Vixen 21._ _Unheard of_.

She absent-mindedly traces her hand up near drivers side window when she hears herself murmur, “I think I’m in love.”

At that moment, she catches Ben Solo’s eye in the side mirror. He’s been watching her with a curious expression. She fires questions at his reflection before she can stop herself.

“Is this the Turbo Diesel? Did you know these things can do 100 m.p.h.? Ooh, can I look at the lift-top?” She stands on her tiptoes, doing little jumps, trying to get a look at the hinges. “This is really your dad’s?”

“It belongs to me, now. Technically.” He turns his away from the mirror to watch her directly.

His gaze suddenly makes her self-conscious. She stills.

“Oh, um... I’m Rey, by the way. Hi.”

She doesn’t recognize any of Luke’s features in his long, pale face...except maybe for the intensity in his dark eyes.

They study her face for a few seconds, and then run up and down her body. It’s not even subtle. He looks at her like he knows something. She suddenly feels exposed, like she didn’t do the reading, either. _Luke could have said...._ She pushes the concern down and stares back him. He looks like the photo, but maybe not quite as well lit.

“Ben.” He gives her a little nod. It’s _a_ greeting _._ Of sorts.  “I’ll drive the first shift? It’s not the easiest thing to handle in the city. Unless you want…”

 _Oh_ . His voice is deep. Resonant. Finn did _not_ mention his voice. She briefly imagines sitting in a lecture hall, eyes closed, listening to him go on about Kant or Heidegger. Her belly tightens for a second.

“Nope, you’re already there,” she says brightly, suddenly feeling awash with nervous energy. “I’ll just grab my stuff—”

He shifts focus to something behind her. Finn’s stuffing her baseball bat in the larger of the duffels.

“Door on the other side’s open.”

Rey and Finn gather her bags and walk around to the other side.

“This thing is insane,” he whispers. “Fuck, I wish I had known about this when that asshole was my TA. It’s like, the equivalent of picturing the audience in their underwear. Send me a picture from the inside.”

Rey rolls her eyes, pulling him into the tightest possible hug.

“I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’ll be there soon. Just another semester. Or two. Okay?  Rey? I--”

Suddenly a blaring _hoooooonnnnkkkk_ sounds.

“Sorry, hand slipped,” Ben yells from the front.

Finn pulls her back slightly as she reaches for the side door. His other hand is on the bat.

“Sure you don’t want to keep this up front?”

“I think threatening the driver with a bat might be bad shotgun etiquette.”

With one last hug and a big, cleansing inhale, Rey steps up into Falcon, dragging one of the duffels behind her. She looks around, taking in the insanity of the interior. It’s clearly been modified plenty of times over the years and could stand a thorough cleaning. Or three.  

“There should be room for your stuff on the, uh, bed. In the back,” Ben says, without turning around.

“Thanks,” she says, grabbing the second duffel from Finn and hauling them to the full bed. She unzips the smaller bag to double check that everything’s still in there and then wedges it behind a large black bin.

Every surface of the living area is filled with neatly organized storage bins--the expensive kind people with disposable income apparently buy at The Container Store. It’s quite the juxtaposition from the...earthy...feel of the RV.  

Finn shuts the side door as Rey makes her way to the wide, bench-like passenger seat, dropping her tote bag on the dinette table behind it. There’s a checkerboard painted on the table surface and she briefly wonders if Ben and his parents sat around this table, playing games and being the quintessential American family.

Finn pokes his head up into the passenger side window as she sits down.

“Text me, okay?” He looks pointedly at Ben; Ben looks directly back at him.  “On the hour.”

“Yes sir,” she says, giving him a little salute.

He kisses her on the cheek. “Save me a seat on the N train. I’ll be there, Rey.” She knows he means it. She just has to wait and hope for the best. Like she’s always done.

Rey suddenly senses Ben impatiently watching the private exchange. With interest. Reaching for her seatbelt she gives Finn a last little wave.

“Ok, ready.”

Ben does another half-nod thing, presses down on the clutch and starts the engine. The Falcon roars back to life.

“Can you check your side? The visibility in this thing is shit. It’s impossible to drive without another person.”

“All good,” Rey says, peaking back at Finn. He’s still looking up at her, miming the swing of a bat. She turns around quickly, feeling the sting of tears.

“You know how to drive stick, right?” He eases onto the road.

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty good with cars, actually. Fixing them up and stuff,” she says, the nervous energy manifesting as rambling. “I like fixing things. Did, uh, Professor Skywalker mention that?”

Ben shakes his head. She’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed.

“Do you drive this thing...often?”

It’s a ridiculous question. But he seems surprisingly comfortable handling the Falcon, even with the frequent stops and narrow roads.

“No,” he says, pausing to take a breath in. “It’s been sitting in storage on and off for the last few years. I sold my car last week. It’s not really practical to keep it in the city.”

“You know these are incredibly rare, right? This is like the Delorean of motorhomes.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that several hundred times.” He keeps looking at the road.

_Well, then._

He slows to a stop at a crosswalk and glances at her again. 

“Sorry, I’m just…” he exhales dramatically. “This piece of junk has been the bane of my existence my whole life. It’s not my favorite topic. It’s in my name now and I’m selling it once we get to the city. That’s why I’m driving it.”

The bitterness in his tone reminds Rey of _her_ least-favorite topic: _people with loving families complaining about them._

She conjures up a fantasy of herself as a child, sitting at the checkerboard table with two nurturing parents. _They smile at her, praise her, make her feel safe and cared for. Let her win at checkers._ A wave a resentment washes over her and she knows it will simmer for awhile. She distracts herself with her phone. There’s a text from Finn, but no other messages.  

Neither of them say much as he navigates down the tree-lined campus roads, but once they make it to the interstate, he seems to relax a little.

“I have this all figured out. It’s a thirteen hour trip, which breaks down to 4 shifts of 3 hours, 15 minutes each. Or, we could break if down by mileage. There’s a map on my phone that I set to alert us at the locations where we would change shifts….”

Ben continues talking, but Rey puts him on mute in her head, using the opportunity to look at him more closely under the guise of “conversation.” If a list of mileage permutations can be called that.

She can tell now that he’s tall because of how far the driver’s seat is pushed back. He actually looks like he’s the appropriate scale to drive a bus.  He’s wearing one of those expensive fitted t-shirts that seems a bit too small, but on purpose; it makes his shoulders and arms look big. Her eyes linger on the way his hands grip the wheel. _His hands are large too._

Rey supposes she could have worn something more presentable than an old Blackhawks t-shirt and cut-offs. She feels exposed, especially when steals glances at her. She _could_ retrieve a hoodie from her duffel bag and cover up a bit more.

But she doesn’t.

And, anyway, she fits right in with the aesthetics of the Falcon. It’s Ben who looks out of place.

She agrees to switch at one of the aforementioned intervals, she’s not sure which. Then, with no other “business” to discuss, they ride in silence again for what feels like ten minutes, but is actually more like two.

It’s untenable—almost _insulting_ —that he’s not making any effort to start a conversation or entertain her. _Only serial killers drive in silence._  

“Music?” Rey ventures, pulling a tiny, battle-scarred iPod Shuffle out of her pocket. “What’s the sound system in here? Tape deck?” She examines the controls on the dash. The stereo has been modified, several times, by the looks of it.

“You don’t keep your music on your phone?”

“It barely handles regular phone duties.” She holds up a smartphone that’s in even worse shape. “I found the Shuffle a couple years ago. When people move out for summer break, they leave _so_ much crap. It happens every year. They just leave perfectly good things on the curb. Finn and I furnished our whole apartment with stuff people were too lazy to sell.”

He jerks his head almost imperceptibly when she mentions Finn.

“This little guy is perfect for jogging. Clips right on to my sports bra, no messing around with looking down at a screen. Plus, the element of surprise. I press play and _anything_ could happen. A show tune. Hall  & Oates. We could be subjected to 24 minutes of a Phish bootleg.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Not being able to choose a specific track would drive me insane,” Ben mutters. But it’s definitely too quiet; if there’s music, it’s less likely he’ll have to talk. “There’s an aux cord in the console over here.” He nudges his elbow toward a compartment in the middle of the dash.

Rey looks slightly hesitant to open it, not that he can blame her, considering the condition of everything else in the Falcon. He hadn’t had time to clean out the whole vehicle ( _that would require a Hazmat suit_ ), but he tackled the front yesterday, emptying all compartments, wiping everything down, and vacuuming the seats and the floor. It was horrifying but well worth the effort.

He’s slightly gratified when she opens the little door and nothing scary falls out.

“There are center consoles that don’t contain extra napkins and snacks I forgot about? Amazing.” She grabs a neatly wound cord and connects it to the input jack on the stereo system.

Something about the girl touching _his stuff_ triggers a pleasant shiver down his spine.

“If it’s Phish, I’m confiscating that.”

With a bit of a flourish, she hits play. The bassline of some MGMT bullshit blasts through the speakers and he’s reminded that she’s barely out of undergrad. At 25, Ben’s not that much older, but he’s always felt out of step with people his own age. As an only child he alternated between being coddled and treated like his parents’ peer...whichever was more convenient for them at the time.

Rey bounces to the beat in her seat as Ben steals a few glances in her direction.

“I’m surprised this is such a great sound system. Really good bass.”

“It’s custom,” Ben utters before he can stop himself. _A feeble attempt to impress this girl with RV stereo equipment? Well played._  

“Hey, do you mind if I look around for a minute?” she asks, unbuckling her seatbelt and standing up before he can answer. She turns her head to add, “Try to keep it steady.”

He’d been prepared for Rey to be horrified by the prospect of a 13-hour trip in the Falcon, with its size and aggressive eighties-ness. She could have easily backed out of the whole trip as soon as he pulled up. And now she’s currently walking around in _his space_ , making herself at home, examining, and even _touching_ things.

_What kind of girl recognizes an obscure vintage camper van? And...lovingly caresses it?_

He feels a flash of resentment, imagining how Han would respond to Rey’s genuine interest in this stupid trash pile on wheels. They’d probably converse easily about the pneumatic struts or the coach batteries.

 _How the fuck am I_ still _jealous of a fucking recreational vehicle?_

He takes a breath. Sometimes it helps when he feels himself start to spiral, but more often than not, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

“I hope this isn’t going to be one of those trips with a lot of long, awkward silences,” Rey says, coming back up to the front.

“Yeah, me too,” Ben agrees, even though his life is a series of long, awkward silences. 

But the music seems to have provided an acceptable level of entertainment for her, so lets his thoughts wander in a different direction as she settles back into the passenger seat.

Which is to say that Ben thinks about the length of her shorts. He pictures the way she was actually _bent over_ at the waist when he pulled up. The intense little staring contest they had when she introduced herself. There’s something—a frisson of excitement. He allows the pleasurable feelings to bloom in his chest. And elsewhere… And he tries like hell not to associate any of it with Luke ( _fuck him_ ).

Being trapped in the Falcon for thirteen hours with a stranger—one of Luke’s devotees, no less—sounded like a terrible idea at first. _And what kind of person is “afraid to fly” in 2010?_  

But after he googled her name, he’d recognized her. He’d seen her in a lecture hall months ago, when he and Luke were still on speaking terms: a slight, but headstrong girl vigorously debating his uncle (and his clique of fawning grad students, all suspiciously female). She’d been articulate for an undergrad, arguing passionately for—well, he hadn’t quite caught the specifics.

His interest in her has more to do with her openly challenging his uncle than the fact that she’s a pretty girl with wide, expressive eyes who can also drive a manual transmission. _Yes._ That is definitely what he has been telling himself. 

The track ends and the Shuffle helpfully selects Prince’s “Cream” at random. Ben and Rey both freeze for a few seconds, as Prince’s moans blast through the speakers.

“This is...I’ll just…” Rey says, grabbing the device from where it’s perched on the console and skipping to the next track.  “Maybe when I know you better.”

Morrissey’s “I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me” suddenly kicks in. They exhale simultaneously.

“So, who talks first?” she asks, rearranging herself on the seat ( _my seat_ , he reminds himself), tucking a leg under her butt, gently bopping along with Morrissey’s whining.

“What?” He snaps out of his meandering thoughts. The sight of her making herself comfortable stirs up the feelings again.

“Why don’t you tell me the story your life?” she suggests.

“The story of my life?”

“The ritual swapping of life stories? Have you never ridden in a car with a stranger before? We have twelve and half more hours of this.” She looks tiny in the oversized seat and she’s turned herself almost all the way around to the left to face him.

“My life story will barely get us out of Chicago,” he says, staring ahead at the road. “I’ve been a doctoral candidate for the last four years. That’s it.”

“I dunno, I’ve heard some stuff.”

“About me?” _Fuck._ In his entire life, that had never been a good thing.

“That you were about to do your defense but you quit dramatically, like in a rage or something. But I mean, who knows what qualifies for ‘rage’ by the standards of the philosophy department?”

She pauses, apparently waiting for him to elaborate, but he keeps his face as neutral as possible. He hasn’t talked to anyone about the circumstances of his exit from the university and he’s not starting with her.

“And I know you and...Professor Skywalker had some kind of falling out.”  

He feels the mask slip.

“Did he tell you what happened?” _Fuck Luke and his fucking need to play the victim_.

She shakes her head.

“I got the sense he didn’t want to talk about it.”

A palpable sense of relief washes over him.

“So why are you moving to New York?” she asks, pivoting the conversation quickly.

“A job. Outside academia.” _And no more academic or family legacy bullshit._

“And what are the career opportunities like for philosophers these days?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Would you believe you’re the first person to ask me that?”

“Sorry to be so obvious,” she says, sitting up straighter. “I’m trying to fill a lot of time, here. Should I use the Socratic method?”

“It’s not philosophy. It’s more like...writing. Strategy. Thought leadership.”

“Oh. You mean corporate bullshit.” That’s exactly what Han says about it. Not one person in his life supports him taking this job, which only makes it more appealing.

“Yes, I know. All undergrads hate corporations. But they’re perfectly happy to go into debt to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars, paid to Navient and a university that already has a billion dollars in endowments. All for a useless degree that won’t open a single door without a series of unpaid internships or another degree and another 100K. I mean, law school? You might as well flush your money down the toilet.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds.

“Wait, why are you moving to New York?” he remembers to ask.

“Law school.”

“Oh.” _Fuck._

“I don’t care about being a practicing lawyer,” she says, looking out the window as they slowly make their way out of Chicago. “I like public affairs, policy wonk kind of stuff. I want to run a campaign or work for the ACLU.” She turns back to him. "You might be familiar with the concept as ‘hope-y, change-y stuff.’”

Obviously Luke _had_ told her enough to paint him as some kind of right-wing, fascist asshole. _Which isn’t even accurate._ But anything that goes against Luke’s precious dogma is immediately suspect. _Fuck him_. 

“Three years of law school is a pretty expensive way to become a full-time social justice warrior.”

He’s been trying to make “social justice warrior” happen. “Kylo Ren” has tweeted it a few times and gotten a decent number of retweets. But Rey doesn’t seem to register it.

“Luke mentioned you had a dark side,” she says.

“A ‘dark side’?” _And he’s “Luke,” now?_

“I didn’t take it as insulting,” she says defensively. “I mean, I have just as much of a dark side as the next person—”

“Oh really? You have a dark side? Because you feel _sad_ sometimes?” He feels a familiar angry momentum start to build. “Suppose nothing happens to you. Suppose you live in New York your whole life and you never meet anyone and you never become anything and finally you die one of those New York deaths where nobody even notices for two weeks.”

She raises her eyebrows.  He keeps going.

“When I get a new book, I read the last page first. That way, if I die before I finish, I know how it comes out.”

“So you think that makes you deep or something?”

“Do you think about death?” he continues.

“Of course.”

“Sure you do. A fleeting thought that drifts in and out of the transom of your mind.  I spend hours, I spend days—”

“That doesn’t make you a better person.”

“—contemplating the nothingness. Do you realize _nothing_ happens after we die? That there’s an entire universe inside your head and it just fucking _ends in an instant._ ”

“Yes. And I think it takes more courage to be happy in this world despite that.”

_Fucking Skywalker bullshit platitudes._

“It takes more strength to face reality.”

Ben glances over to see Rey scrutinizing him. He can almost see the wheels turning in her mind.

“How long have you been single?” she asks with a matter-of-fact tone.

“How do you know I’m not with someone?” he asks, defensively.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“No.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben Solo is a bit of a prick, and not even in a particularly interesting way. Rey pulls out her phone and texts Finn quickly.

**Ok, maybe u were right**

 

**It’s been 20 mins have you even left the city?**

 

***looks around for baseball bat***

 

When “Roll With It” comes up next on the Shuffle, Rey wonders if the device might be sentient. She decides to steer the conversation away from death.

“I’ve never been to New York,” she says.

“I grew up there.”

“Brooklyn’s supposed to be cool. That’s what I’ve heard, at least.”

“I don’t even step foot in Brooklyn anymore. It’s ruined. Totally overrun with transplants who overpay for their shitty apartments and displace the real New Yorkers.” She’s sure her face falls because he quickly adds, “Sorry, I’m sure you’d like it. Prospect Park is...fine.”

Rey refuses to keep leading the conversation, so there’s another long silence.

“Why law school?” he asks suddenly. “I’m surprised Luke lets his advisees do something other than organize rallies and analyze footage of bonobos fucking each other.”

“My focus was political sociology.” She shrugs. “I never spent too much time with the videos, but I do think the bonobos might be onto something.”

Rey reaches for her tote bag, where she remembers seeing a granola bar. It’s the crunchy kind that no one really wants to eat but for some reason they’re still ubiquitous. She can’t remember where she got it; it just remains in her bag in case of emergency. And because it’s been the bag for so long, it’s extra crumbly. It’s petty, but she feels satisfied, ripping into the package and “accidentally” letting the crumbs fly everywhere.

Ben is visibly irritated; Rey is pleased.

“I know you and Luke aren’t on the best terms,” she says, half-heartedly sweeping some granola bits into her palm. “But you have to respect his research.”

“Oh, I do?” 

“He’s being published by a mainstream press. Regular people are going to read this work, it’s not going to be buried at some stuffy academic conference. He’s booked on NPR. _That’s_ ‘thought leadership’.” Ben focuses on the road.  “His theories could actually shift the patriarchal myth of monogamy. I mean, when I think about the implications for feminism and centering women’s needs and desires, I just—it honestly changed my entire outlook on how I want my life to be.”

“If you say so.” He glances in one of the mirrors, not taking the bait.  “Can I move over on the right?”

She checks the world’s largest blindspot.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

She waits for him to say something in response to that overly effusive monologue. A Ben Folds song suddenly seems really loud through the speakers.

“Okay, fine. Why don’t you respect his research?”

He pounces immediately.

“His work is biased. He has clear evidentiary shortcomings and problematic assumptions. And it’s riddled with research errors.”

She balls up the granola bar wrapper. Whenever academics critique Luke’s work they fall back on technicalities. Probably because they can’t deal with the truth.

“Fine. Put the jargon aside. What’s your argument against his theory?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

In anyone else, this enthusiasm for Luke’s work would be annoying as hell. Most of his uncle’s hangers-on are either attracted to his funding or his “fame” ( _he’s “famous” by academic standards, which is laughable_ ). They usually couldn’t give a shit about his actual work, except that it’s “edgy” and an excuse to talk about sex.

But there’s something about Rey’s genuine, naive belief in his uncle’s theories ( _self-serving bullshit_ ) that intrigues him. He could shut down the conversation right now with a few intellectual barbs, but he finds himself stoking it instead.

He tries a less antagonistic tactic.  

“I think—” he reorganizes his thoughts and tries again, exhaling. “I think that a theory based on a societal construct from hunter-gatherer times isn’t a model we should be holding up as a way forward. Maybe polyamory works for bonobos. But we’re not bonobos. We evolved out of hunting and gathering. So did our societal norms and the way we...uh, procreate, raise families. And humans have thrived. Possibly because we _don’t_ belong to promiscuous sex clans.”

She scoffs.

“So because eight thousand years ago, the patriarchy decided to conflate sex with land ownership, we’re just subject to a flawed system that puts women at a disadvantage? And we’re stuck with that forever?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I would take a ‘promiscuous sex clan’ over a marriage any day. But once again, the tyranny of the ‘nuclear family’ has to take precedence over any alternative. Never mind that it privileges people, like _you_ , who had loving families who provided for them.”

“You don’t know _anything_ about my family—”

“—I know everything I need to know about you.”

“From Luke? He’s not exactly a fucking impartial character witness.”

“And Finn. You were his TA and he said you were a condescending monster.”

“Your boyfriend said that?”

“My best friend. Roommate.”

Ben had suspected as much, but he'd wanted confirmation and now he has it.

He turns the music down a couple ticks, refocusing on the road while both of them cool down.

“We have twelve more hours of this,” he says, in a measured tone. “Can we not talk about Skywalker or his book, or families, or me being a monster?”

He looks over at Rey to gauge her reaction. She’s still staring at him with the barest hint of an accusation, but it’s hard to tell.   

“Or death,” she adds, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.

He takes the hint of a smile and attempts to run with it.

“Me, the prince of darkness, going half a day without talking about death?” Yes, he’s a tiny bit pleased with that line.

The corner of her mouth curves up into something like a grin. “Would it... _kill_ you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Puns are also on the list.”

She actually laughs. Kind of. His stomach tightens.

“Oh my god. It’s only fun to make puns when the other person hates them. This trip just got so much better.”

“Twelve hours of the lowest form of humor? Fantastic.”

Ben feels himself— _maybe_ —smiling. On the inside. A little bit.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm also [ slipgoingunder ](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where I normally post really long fic recs and [twitter](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder) where I'm a lot more active these days. I have a [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/slipgoingunder) for any anon questions. 
> 
> The whole drive to NYC was originally one chapter, but it was so long that I decided to split it. I realize that it’s probably the least When Harry Met Sally-ish part of this whole fic, as it only covers about 3 mins of screen time. I promise, they are about to stop at the diner and things will pick up VERY quickly. (Also, remember that When Harry Met Sally is 90% two people conversing, so....)
> 
> Luke’s book is a reference to Sex at Dawn, which you can read about [here](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7640261-sex-at-dawn). It actually did come out in 2010. 
> 
> [This](https://www.outsideonline.com/1988606/vixen-coolest-most-energy-efficient-camper-youve-never-heard) is the [ greatest RV of all time](http://vixenrv.com/index.php?pr=History) . Seriously, look at the size of Chekov’s passenger seat. Ahem. 
> 
> My [playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/user/jd2dzvr8ji3gahg69cl282kxu/playlist/38h88Q5tLZka4wfMBYAPQR)for this chapter. (I was reliving those sweet 2010 vibes.)


	2. Need You Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s the fantasy?” Rey asks. 
> 
> “What?”
> 
> “One of the sex dreams you have that’s so ‘erotic’? I’ll bet you an extra hour of driving that, whatever it is, I can top it,” she says.
> 
> “Top it?”
> 
> “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you one of mine. Best one wins.”
> 
> “I don’t want to talk about this.” He makes a show of turning his attention back to the menu.
> 
> “Okay. Forget it.” She does the same. 
> 
> A few moments pass. Ben shifts in his seat. Rey is very good at waiting. 
> 
> “How do we determine the ‘best one’?” he asks suddenly. 
> 
> “Oh, I think we’ll know,” she says, the slightest trace of a smirk on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, there’s a twist/possible shocker at the end of this chapter. Please know that, while it does come up again on a few occasions, it doesn’t play a large role in the story going forward. (And see the end note if you're concerned.)

“The top was wobbling, you can clearly see that before the smash cut to black.” The sun is setting somewhere in Ohio, as Rey takes an off-ramp, heading for the adorable looking diner she spotted from the interstate.

“The entire final sequence is completely ambiguous, plus there’s no way everything would fall into place so perfectly for him in the real world. Even his kids look like they haven’t aged.” He looks out the window. “Why are you turning off here? I bookmarked the place with the good Yelp reviews.”

“They are definitely different kids and he’s not wearing his wedding ring. He wears it in the dreams. And I’m turning off here because I’m starving and this place has an enormous parking lot.” She eases the Falcon around to an empty part of the back lot and cuts the ignition, feeling relieved that she didn’t have to perform some complex parking maneuver with Ben judging her from the passenger seat. “He makes it back. It’s a hopeful ending. He moves on with his life. The wobble proves it. You’re reading too much into it.”

Ben unbuckles his seatbelt and opens the side door.

“Forget the wobble. It’s irrelevant. The point is that he walked away from the totem. The line between reality and dreams had no significance for him anymore. He’s accepted that there is no objective reality.”

Rey grabs her purse and her phone and slams the driver’s side door, instinctually recognizing the philosophy grad student bullshit, designed to sound intelligent, while taking no position at all. They make their way towards the diner entrance.

“You didn’t think the dreams were too—I dunno, sanitized?” she suggests. “I kind of wonder if Christopher Nolan has ever actually had a dream.”

“It’s all metaphorical anyway. His point is that we’re all living in prisons of our own making, letting our own consciousness determine what’s ‘real’ and what’s not. This could all be a simulation right now. How would we know?”

“So you’re dreaming and I’m just a projection of your subconscious?”

“Or the other way around.”

Rey’s phone lights up with a new text, but she ignores it and puts it away.

“I know when I’m dreaming,” she insists. “And I’m pretty good at controlling them, too. I could make this—” she gestures between them, “—go very differently.”

“With your mind?”

“Lucid dreaming. When you get really good, you can actually fuck all of those projections.”

“That’s what you’re doing in your dreams?” They reach the entrance to the diner.

“Well sometimes the projections don’t cooperate.” She pauses, contemplating this. “Which is weird because they’re all coming from my own subconscious. But it’s good practice. I always had trouble sleeping and now it’s like...a whole other door opened. I could lend you this book about it. It’ll change your life.”

“I’ll pass,” he says, reaching to open the door.

She steps in front of him, blocking the entrance.

“I’m offering you the chance to explore any sexual fantasy you can invent with your perverted subconscious and you’ll ‘pass’? You’re not even curious?” He rolls his eyes. “You really have a lot of hang ups, don’t you?”

“You’re the one trying to have sex with your own mind. Wouldn’t it be easier to—” He makes some kind of hand gesture. “— _you know_... before you go to sleep?”

“‘You know’?” she repeats, mimicking the hand gesture back at him. “Jesus, do you even have sexual fantasies? Or do you just power down at night?”

He reaches around her and pulls open the door. Rey slips inside the diner before he has a chance to respond and marches ahead of him to the hostess stand.

“Two, please.”

“It just so happens I have _plenty_ of very erotic sexual fantasies!” he retorts, inadvertently raising his voice above the INXS song on the radio and the conversations of the other diners. He freezes in place as the other patrons raise their heads to look up at him as the hostess nods at an empty table.

Rey slides into the booth, leaving Ben standing in the aisle between the rows of tables. He lowers his head as if to make himself less conspicuous (impossible) and sits opposite her.

They pick up their menus.

“What’s the fantasy?” Rey asks, not looking up.

“What?”

“One of the sex dreams you have that’s so ‘erotic’?” His eyes narrow. “I’ll bet you an extra hour of driving that, whatever it is, I can top it,” she says.

“Top it?”

“You tell me yours, I’ll tell you one of mine. Best one wins.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” He makes a show of turning his attention back to the menu.

“Okay. Forget it.” She does the same.

A few moments pass. Ben shifts in his seat. 

Rey is very good at waiting.

“How do we determine the ‘best one?' ” he asks suddenly.

“Oh, I think we’ll know,” she says, the slightest trace of a smile on her lips.

Ben studies the laminate table top, apparently collecting his thoughts, before looking up dramatically.

“Basically it’s the same one I’ve had since I was twelve. It’s very psychological.”

“What happens?” Rey puts the menu down, drawing forward to devote her full attention to the story.

He pauses, closing his eyes for a moment. “Okay, there’s this woman.”

“What does she look like?”

“I don’t know. She’s...sort of faceless, I guess. And she’s kind of...pursuing me physically. Like through a forest or something.”

“Ooh, metaphors. Okay. Keep going.”

“I trip over something and I’m frozen in place, with her looming over me.” Rey stops herself from interjecting with another observation. “And then she rips off my clothes,” he says, with a bit of a flourish.

Silence.

“Then what?”

“That’s it.”

Rey sits back, disbelieving.

“That’s it? A faceless woman rips off your clothes and _that’s_ the sex dream you’ve been having since you were twelve? Exactly the same every time?”

“Sometimes I vary it a little.”

“Okay. What are the variations?”

“What I’m wearing.”

He seems to be waiting for a response, but Rey is at a loss for words. A Tears for Fears song plays inoffensively in the background. Mercifully, the waitress appears at their table, setting down two waters, breaking the silence.

“What can I get you?”

“I’ll have the number three and a Coke,” Rey says, handing the menu over.

“What kind of bread? We have white, rye, whole whe--”

“Surprise me.”

The waitress turns to Ben.

“I’d like the chef salad with oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode.”

The waitress is about to grab his menu when he continues.

“But I’d like the pie heated, and I don’t want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And whipped cream, but only if it’s real. If it’s out of the can, then nothing.

“Not even the pie?”

“No, just the pie, but then not heated.”

“Just checking--vanilla ice cream is okay?”

“Yes. On the side.”

The waitress gives Rey a look and heads back to the kitchen.

“Wow. Vanilla? You really threw her a curve ball there.”

* * *

“So, the, uh, dream you described raised some questions for me,” Rey says, leaning forward and crossing her arms over the table.

“Did it?”

“How many people have you slept with?”

_Another interrogation_. He shifts back in his seat.

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“Okay don’t tell me,” she says with a little shrug.

He waits for her to ask again. Instead, she takes her phone out of her tote bag and ignores him. Her nonchalance only makes him more desperate for her attention.

“Two.” She practically tosses her phone aside. He immediately regrets speaking.

“You’ve been with two people?” She holds up two fingers. “Two?”

“How many have you?”

Rey looks to the side, brow furrowed, as if she’s performing a complicated calculation.

She looks straight at him again.

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you, like, twenty-two? What do you mean you ‘don’t know’?”

She shrugs.

“I mean ‘I don’t know.’ After number five or six, things start to blur together and you stop counting. These aren’t, like, epic romances.”

“Is the number closer to ten or closer to one hundred?”

She rolls her eyes.

“ _Really?_  'One hundred?' I’m non-monogamous, but it’s not a free-for-all. When you separate out sex from the baggage of romantic relationships, the number doesn’t feel important. I’m picky, you know? I have acquaintances, friends with benefits—”

“Your roommate?”

“No! That’s a terrible idea.” She shakes her head. “Never do that.” Ben breathes a tiny sigh of relief. “Sometimes I add new friends to the rotation and inevitably people flake and it evens out. I’m sure it’s not for everyone—” she gives him a pointed look, unless he’s just imagining it—“but it works for me. I mean, how did you think I got interested in Luke’s research anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, well, we said we weren’t going to talk about—”

“It’s fine.” He leans forward, wanting to hear this.

“I went to one of his lectures last year and it all clicked. I just always felt so... _wrong_ for not wanting what society says you should want. I mean, especially for girls, right? We’re conditioned to look for men who will be ‘good providers’ and ‘strong fathers’ for the kids we are definitely supposed to have. Women aren’t taught to put their sexual desires first.”

“Luke said that in his lecture?”

“Well, not that, exactly. I’m just giving you the context. The point is, there was this smart person, saying it ‘there’s a different way to be.’ I had always felt this way inside. And everything Luke said just validated it. With _science_. Committed relationships benefit men. The invention of ‘romance’ was just another way to keep women trapped in those relationships. I don’t think the ideal ‘family unit’ has to be two partners and a child.”

Unwelcome thoughts of Han and Leia pass through his mind.

“It’s all just a made up construct so that landowners could pass their property down to their sons,” she continues. “I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Sex doesn’t need to be all tied up in stupid possessive rules created by old white men from thousands of years ago.”

“But you heard that from an old white man. I’m more interested in your ideas.”

She makes a face.

“You really don’t think Luke’s theory has merit?” she asks.

“In my opinion as an academic?”

“In your opinion as a man.”

He tenses slightly, a single word somehow forcing everything through a different lens.

“I don’t have any illusions about happy two-parent families, if that’s what you’re getting at. But if I have sex with a woman and she has a child, I would want to know that it’s _my_ child and not the kid of one of the other 5 ‘friends’ she was with that month. I just would. That’s my opinion. As a man.”

Rey adjusts her posture, apparently spoiling for another argument.

“First of all, why are you and this faceless woman having so much unprotected sex? And secondly, doesn’t it make a difference that you could also fuck other people without being bound forever to _one person_ to fulfill every single need you’ll ever have for the rest of your life?”

“Fucking strangers is overrated.”

“How would you know? You’ve slept with two people!”

“I just _know_ , all right?” He can’t stop the monologue from rushing out with alarming speed. “The...arrangement you have is probably going to work for you for a little while. Maybe a couple years. But I _guarantee_ anyone would get sick of living like that forever. That’s why you spend years looking for one person who won’t bore you. Who deals with your bullshit. Who makes sacrifices for you even when you don’t deserve it. Who’s the only person you want to hold all night until your arm falls asleep. Who’s legally obligated to bring you matzo ball soup when you get a cold. Not one of those ‘friends’ is ever going to do any of that for you.”

Rey stares at him, mouth hanging open as if she was prepared to respond four sentences ago.

He looks down and clears his throat softly. When he looks back up, she’s still staring.

“God, you really haven’t had any good sex, have you?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Exactly 35 minutes later, a scheduled chime sounds on Ben’s phone as he calculates the precise split of the tab, including the tip.

“We should leave if we want to stay on schedule,” he says, without looking up.

He mumbles some numbers to himself. Intellectually, he knows you can just move the decimal point and double it, but his brain always divides the total by 5. He always does it the harder way.

“It’s interesting…” Rey says hesitantly. “Luke never told me you were good looking.”

Ben’s head shoots up.

“Why would he even have an opinion about that?” He slides to the edge of the booth, wanting to escape her eye line.

“I don’t really think it’s a matter of opinion,” she continues. “Empirically, you’re...attractive. I’m surprised he didn’t concern troll me about ‘opening myself up to the dark side’ or something. I mean, a brooding nephew with pretty eyes? It’s total forbidden fruit material.”

He furrows his brow, unable to stop himself from asking—

“Are you coming on to me?”

She looks up at him.

“Do you want me to be coming _on_ you?”

Ben gets up so suddenly he nearly knocks the table over. He throws down his cash and immediately heads for the exit, feeling his face burn. He walks in the opposite direction of where they parked, just needing to be anywhere else.

“Hey! Ben, come back,” she shouts from the stoop. “It was just word play!”

“Puns were on the list!” he yells back, not turning around.

He hears the sound of sneakers hitting the pavement and he slows to let her catch up. She jogs to get in front of him and he comes to a full stop.

“Okay, I’m sorry. It just slipped out.” She keeps meeting his eye and looking away anxiously.

“You’re really frustrating, you know that? You don’t get to turn everything into a joke.”

“It wasn’t. It was a pun, but—I meant it.” She takes a tiny, hesitant step closer, looking up at him with no trace of humor in her eyes. “I mean, do you? Want me...to be…”

_Fuck._

His heart pounds. _This is...not a joke?_ He moves toward her. She tentatively reaches out her hand. Without thinking, he takes it, tugging her closer—

The sickeningly cheerful sound of a digital marimba blasts out of Rey’s bag, making her jump back in surprise.

“Let me just—” she fishes around in her bag, stepping away. The marimba continues to ring out across the parking lot.

Ben exhales, noticing that his hand is still extended to where she was just standing. He pulls it back and runs it through his hair, needing something to do.

Rey finally pulls out the phone and taps on the screen. The marimba stops. She doesn’t answer, but she does look at the phone for few moments with a strange expression on her face.

His mind starts racing, mapping out the possibilities of what might happen now. Clearly, whatever spell they were under ten seconds ago is over. 

“Hey, I never got my turn with the fantasy game,” Rey says, walking back over and slipping her phone back in her bag. “Do you want to hear one? It’s like a three minute walk back to the Falcon anyway.”

He studies her face. Something’s definitely shifted, but he’s not sure if it was because of the phone call or a sudden realization that whatever almost happened was a huge mistake.

“Fine,” he says cautiously, as they head toward the rear parking lot.

“Ok, I’m improvising here, so...”

Rey takes a dramatic breath in.

“My car breaks down in the desert on the side of a highway. I look under the hood, but I can’t fix it. Suddenly, an enormous RV rolls to a stop beside me.”

Ben rolls his eyes.

“When I look inside, I see there’s a man driving it. He has dark hair and pale skin and he’s tall and when our eyes met, they just bore into me. He tells me to get in and leave my car. Which is a bad thing to do, but I _have_ to get in the RV because of the way he’s looking at me. Like he can see every part of me, but it’s still not enough.

“He opens the door for me to get in, and he holds out his hand to help me up. And when we touch, it’s like...we just _know_ everything that’s going to happen. That we’re never going to drive anywhere. He pulls me inside and we take off each other’s clothes...so slowly. Because we don’t have anywhere to be and he wants to uncover every single inch of me. And I try to touch him, but he doesn’t let me tear into him like I want to. Instead he pushes me back onto the table in the little dining area, even though there’s a bed right there.”

Rey stops walking. Ben stops breathing.

“And my legs are dangling off the edge, not touching the ground. And he runs his fingers up and down my body so lightly. Not letting me have what I want, even though I’m so wet and I need it. Then he grabs my thighs and pulls them up and I’m moaning for him, holding onto the edges of the table, but he just keeps staring at me, his fingers digging into my legs, waiting for me to beg louder—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Ben snaps. “Just stop. I get it, you made your point.” His brain feels overloaded, trying to parse her words from her intentions. Also, he can’t walk comfortably anymore.

“But I didn’t get to a single good part.”

“Tell me what you actually want. No fantasies. No hypotheticals. Just say it.”

“I did.” She takes a step closer to him. “What do you think I said all that stuff for?”

He looks her up and down before landing on her eyes again.

“Say it.”

She inhales.

“We go back in the Falcon. You turn off the scheduled alerts on your phone. I rip your clothes off. You lay me down on the table and make me beg for your cock. Is that straightforward enough?”

He nods slowly, holding his breath.

“I ‘came on to you’ like five times tonight. You’re kind of an idiot.”

“Yes I am.”

* * *

Thirteen seconds later, the side door on the Falcon slams shut and Rey and Ben hurl themselves inside, tripping over the storage boxes.

It’s about 110 degrees.

“I’ll turn the air on,” Rey says, digging in her bag for the keys again.

Her phone is glowing through the fabric of the tote bag. She freezes at the name she knows is on the lock screen. Grabbing the keys, she tosses the bag toward the far end of the bed in the back before moving in the other direction. _Out of sight, out of mind._

Ben tries to maneuver some of the bins off the checkerboard table.

“This fucking thing sleeps 10, how is there no available flat surface back here?”

When the A/C kicks on, there’s a slight mechanical clicking from the ancient tape deck in the stereo. Suddenly, Madonna’s “Crazy for You” blares through the speakers.

Rey pokes at the buttons, but nothing budges.

“That cassingle’s been jammed in there for like twenty-five years,” Ben says, stepping over a bin. “If you punch PAUSE and REWIND really hard at the same time, it’ll stop.”

Rey gets up, grabbing his hand and pulling him all the way up to the front.

“I like it. I feel like I’m at an 80s-themed middle school party. Do you want to awkwardly slow dance while we each look everywhere but at each other?”

But he’s _only_ looking down at her as he moves closer, shaking his head. It makes her heart race.

She nods at the wide passenger seat. Another little flare of concern stings the back of her mind, but she shakes it off.

Rey pushes him down onto the seat.

“Just pretend I don’t have a face,” she says, grabbing at the hem of his shirt.

It’s actually really challenging to literally rip a t-shirt off, so Rey awkwardly yanks it over his head. Then she lifts up her arms so he can reciprocate.

She starts quickly unbuttoning her shorts when she feels Ben’s eyes again. He looks paralyzed.

“What? Did you change your mind?”

“No!” he comes back to life. “I’m just...my brain is like a minute behind.”

She sinks down on his lap, taking his head in her hands. They haven’t actually been this close yet. They’re both breathing heavily. He’s hard underneath her.

The concern becomes more urgent. If she’s going to bring this up...

Rey runs her hands through his stupidly touchable hair, tugging his head back slightly. He grazes her spine lightly with his fingertips. The gentleness make her shiver.

“You’re…” he trails off.

_It’s possible he already knows. Sure. It’s possible he knows and doesn’t even care._

She tenses up and pulls back slightly, cursing her ever-present impulse to do the right thing.

“What’s wro—”

“I slept with Luke.”

Ben’s head jerks back, as if she just shot him in the face.

She feels his body go rigid, his face is transitioning from something like shock to betrayal.

“I thought maybe you knew. I just didn’t want to…without... should I get up?”

She disentangles herself, awkwardly backing into the driver’s seat. He faces straight ahead, looking at the dashboard.

Madonna is still singing about strangers making the most of the dark.

“It’s really not a big deal. It’s a thing that happened. And I’m moving and it’s over. I’m not ashamed about it. I just wanted you to have the information before things went...further.”

Ben looks at her for a few seconds, then jumps out of the seat, grabbing his shirt, and stomps to the side door, slamming it as he steps down from the Falcon.

Rey doesn’t respond fast enough to shout after him. She just waits.

Rey sits on the passenger seat, feeling the granola bar crumbs scratching the backs of her thighs. She puts her shirt back on. She’s only able to be still for a few minutes with a knot in her stomach before she needs a Thing to do. She sets to work on the tape deck, using Ben’s trick to stop it. After some coaxing, she figures out how to eject it. It’s not a cassingle after all, but a mix tape. There’s a label on it that says “FOR LEIA.”

She considers putting it in the console with the aux cords, but it seems like a potential heirloom, so she tucks it in one of Ben’s fancy containers.

It takes about twenty minutes for him to come back. He opens the driver’s side door, sits down, pushes the seat all the way back, and puts the Falcon in gear without saying anything.

Rey follows his lead and remains silent.

For as long as she can stand it.

“What do you want me to do? Take it back? Okay, fine. I take it back. I take the whole thing back. We never even stopped for dinner. Nothing happened. We never even kissed anyway.”

He grips the wheel, exhaling loudly.

“You can’t take it back.”

“Why not?”

“It’s already out there, you can’t pretend none of this ever happened.”

“Oh shit, what are we going to do? Call the cops! It’s already ‘out there’.”

“Just...let it lie. Okay?”

“Great, I have no problem letting it lie. I am letting. It. Lie. When we get to New York, we can just forget we even know each other.”

“Fine.”

They sit in silence, lit by the headlights of the occasional passing truck.

“I thought you were different,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“He does this all the time, you know.”

He’s baiting her and she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a response.

“You’re nothing. To him.”

She feels a tear slide down her cheek, but it’s not because of what he said.

It’s the familiar, empty feeling of being all alone in the world.

_He’s the only person I know in New York._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome. You've reached the (first) controversial part of this fic. Before you leave an angry comment or anon or whatever, [please read this](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/230304805).   
> I don’t see Luke as a monster, just a flawed person. It’s supposed to be kind of gray. Luke will come up again occasionally as a point of contention, but we’re not going to see him in person in the near future. It's not a love triangle, I'm not _that_ insane. Roughly 97% of this fic is not about Luke. 
> 
> If it wasn’t obvious, the movie they’re arguing about is Inception, which came out in July 2010 so they would have both just seen it. 
> 
> My [ playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/user/jd2dzvr8ji3gahg69cl282kxu/playlist/730covxrNvfPJGFWa2mOUI) for this chapter. (Some throwback 80s tracks from inside the diner. In the movie, there are some pretty solid songs playing if you listen closely.)


	3. Things You Call Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo can’t tell if it’s just the First Order stuff or something more personal. Is it possible that Rey both ramped up her hatred of him and forgot he existed in the last four years? She’s swinging at him so hard it’s almost like she workshopped a series of insults in preparation for this moment. 
> 
> But having landed yet another jab about his uncle, she’s calmly sipping from a giant Nalgene bottle and checking her phone. She’s like the human incarnation of the nail polish emoji. 
> 
> “So, you and Paige?” she asks. 
> 
> He nods, even letting the corners of his mouth turn up into the slightest smile at the mention of her name. It could be a trap, but he can’t help it. 
> 
> “You’ve been together like...three weeks?”
> 
> “A month. How’d you know?”
> 
> “Taking someone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship? Classic mistake. I never do it at the beginning. I never want anyone to be able to say to me, ‘How come you never take me to the airport anymore?'”
> 
> “So you’re a long-term relationship expert now?” It suddenly occurs to Kylo that her antagonistic streak might not have all that much to do with him. 
> 
> “You’d be surprised at the things you can become an expert in after four years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In When Harry Met Sally time, we are in the second section, at the airport. We’re going to catch up with these two stubborn kids and watch them have a verbal lightsaber battle. There will be one more (shorter) chapter from 2014 before we get to 2018.

**2014**

Twenty yards from a snaking TSA line at LaGuardia, a tall man and a slightly less tall, but very enthusiastic, woman embrace against a pillar. There aren’t any dark corners where they can hide, but they don’t seem to mind right now.

“Whmh tmz yurr fiagh?” she asks, into his neck. He pulls his head back for a moment.

“I know you’re multilingual, but that one is new to me.”

“What time is your flight?” she murmurs before returning to his neck.

He ignores the question. Her body melts further into him as he cards his fingers through her long dark hair, tugging slightly.

A young woman pulling a roller bag passes a little too close to them, with a slightly irritated look. Lost in their affectionate little cocoon, he ignores the disruption. But out of the corner of his eye, he sees her stop in her tracks and slowly turn back to them, tilting her head to get a better look. It’s too intrusive for him let it go.

_Fucking fans with no respect for personal boundaries._

Just as he’s about to ask what her problem is, she speaks.

“Paige?”

They both straighten up as Paige turns her head.

“Oh my god!” she exclaims, moving to embrace the interloper. “Rey. H-how are you?”

_Surely it’s not..._

His eyes meet hers for just a second when they break the hug. There’s the tiniest flash of recognition. At least he thinks he sees it.

_It_ is _her._

Rey gives no indication of anything as she takes a step back. A panicky rush of adrenaline courses through his chest, but he follows her lead and says nothing.

She looks different. Put together. A little more mature. Her hair is shorter and styled in that tousled way that’s supposed to look effortless. The t-shirt and cut-offs have been replaced with a pencil skirt and a blazer over a silky top. And she’s teetering on very high heels. It’s a standard twenty-something professional uniform. _Maybe she became a lawyer after all._

He avoids further eye contact for the moment, turning away slightly and pretending to answer an important text while monitoring every tiny morsel of the conversation.

“I’m great. Yeah. Well, job hunting. Actually on my way to an interview. Are you still at the D.A.’s office?”

“Nope. Switched sides. Best decision of my life,” says Paige.

He notices that they’re gazing at each other in a way that’s a few degrees more intense than a law school-buddy catch up.

“I love your hair that way,” Rey says softly. She reaches up to _touch Paige’s hair_.

His eyes shoot up. Paige looks slightly mesmerized. _Who the hell does she think she is, just touching someone’s hair like that?_

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Paige says, stepping back, while nudging him forward. “Rey, this is Kylo Ren.”

He waits, heart pounding, for her to acknowledge their strange, specific backstory.

They look each other in the eye. A few seconds pass.

And she doesn’t acknowledge a goddamn thing.

It sends a jab of rejection through his chest. Either she’s being deliberately rude or she doesn’t remember him—and he’s not sure which option is worse. She doesn’t step forward and extend her hand. Neither does he. They nod at each other instead.

“We used to hang out sometimes... ” Paige says in his direction, trailing off. “She’s good friends with my sister.”

Rey’s eyes dart between him and Paige, like she’s evaluating something.

“Well, it was great seeing you,” she says with a little shrug.  “I’ll tell Rose we ran into each other. It’s been way too long since we had a beer garden night.” Kylo swears she winks as she grabs the handle of her bag. “See you around.”

Rey turns and continues down the corridor, heels clicking on the hard flooring. Both Paige and Kylo watch her with similar expressions.

When she’s a safe distance away, he finally exhales. Everything comes out in a rush.

“Thank God she couldn’t place me. I drove from college to New York with her four years ago and it was the longest night of my life.” He hadn’t necessarily meant to tell Paige, but the stress of bottling it up forces the words out of him.

“You know her?” Paige glances back over to Rey as she joins the security line in the distance. “What happened?”

“She wanted to, you know—“ he filters out any sexually charged words here, “ _sleep with me._ And when I said no—she was having an affair with my stupid fucking uncle when he was working on that ridiculous book about—”

“What happened with _her_?”

“When?”

“She wanted to, you said no…?”

“Oh.” It suddenly occurs to him that he hasn’t talked about her before. To anyone. Everything comes spilling out a little too fast, a little too close to the surface. “She bought in to all that polyamory, open relationship Skywalker bullshit and we got into an argument about it. And she was practically bragging about fucking around with her friends. It was that college student thing where you find a cause and decide that your life revolves around proving some stupid fallacy right.”

Paige leans in to kiss him again.

“And you wouldn’t know anything about proving stupid fallacies right, would you?” She tickles at his stomach.

“Hey!”

He pauses. “How did you say you knew her?”

“She used to live with Rose.”

“She did say she doesn’t fuck her roommates, so your sister dodged a bullet there.” He slips his arm around her as they walk to the back of the TSA line. “When am I going to meet Rose?”

Paige stiffens a bit.

“I dunno. She’s very...ideological. And protective of me. I’m sure she’s written some angry think pieces about The First Order. I’m still trying to figure out how to tell her that I’m in love with a notorious conservative pundit.”

He stops walking. She turns around shyly.

“You’re in love with me?”

Paige nods in her adorable little way. His heart swells as pulls her back into an embrace.

“I’m in love with you, too,” he whispers, kissing her on the forehead. He pauses.  “But you know damn well I’m an independent, free-thinking pundit and I don’t believe in the two-party system.”

She laughs.

“I’ll miss you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo has plenty of distractions on the plane—a system to keep himself occupied. His laptop, a hard copy of the Wall Street Journal, and a Friday New York Times crossword puzzle that he saved specifically for this flight (he completes them neatly and in pen).

But right now, he stares straight ahead, a stupid half-smile on his face, leaving the entire system untouched.

No one had ever told him “I love you” before. Aside from his parents, of course. He blinks and flicks that brief thought out of his mind.

Of course, it was an “I’m _in_ love with you,” which is probably not quite the same thing.

_Still_.

His life has been a study in extremes for the last few years. “Kylo Ren” is adored by a certain corner of the internet (he tries not to think about the fact that the loudest and most passionate among them are mostly mouth-breather lunatics and YouTube conspiracy theorists–not exactly the intellectual crowd he had pictured himself cultivating). But he’s also loathed by an equally vocal group of zealots on the other side. He doesn’t mind the negative energy at all. In fact, he prefers it to the adulation, and almost feeds off it when he’s writing or speaking.

Snoke had given him an enormous opportunity when he offered an escape from arguing about long-dead philosophers with old-but-still-breathing philosophers: the chance to spread concrete, _challenging_ ideas. He’s been able to promote some of his more provocative views to the broadest possible audience through the First Order platform.

Occasionally.

Of course, in exchange for this access to this audience, he has to toe the line: confidently spouting cherry-picked facts and statistics on national television, ripping into opposing pundits on various cable outlets, writing memos outlining the day’s talking points for their allies.

His academic credentials provide the First Order with their very own designated intellectual–something they’d been sorely lacking for years.  Snoke promotes him as the Libertarian Rachel Maddow; even forcing him to wear glasses as part of his “brand.” There’s a hashtag.

But it’s all a means to an end. At some point, he won’t have to peddle Snoke’s bullshit and he’ll be truly influential—without the taint of the vacuous, well-groomed idiots ( _fucking Armitage Hux_ ) who populate the First Order’s media properties.

Paige eases his frustrations. Even though they haven’t been dating long, she seems to even him out a bit. She honestly doesn’t seem to care what he does at work. (He doesn’t ask her too many questions about her firm, either.) They can talk about almost anything and it doesn’t have to feel like a high stakes argument. _It’s easy._ And nothing is _ever_ easy for him.

Just as he finds himself idly wondering if this feeling is this why married men live longer, the flight attendant interrupts his musings, asking what he’d like to drink.

* * *

Rey removes the earbuds that have been jammed in her ears for the last hour and presses pause on the FKA twigs album she’s been obsessed with. Even if she could afford those giant noise-canceling headphones, she wouldn’t want to risk messing up her hair before the interview. She always feels self-conscious about her appearance in these formal corporate settings.

As she massages her sore ears, she overhears a deep and familiar voice order something convoluted.

“Do you have bloody mary mix?”

“Yes—”

Rey turns her head toward the aisle, listening to the passenger directly behind her.

“No, wait. Here’s what I want. Regular tomato juice, filled up about three quarters, not too much ice, and then add a splash of bloody mary mix. Just a splash.”

The voice triggers one of those sense memory things she learned about in the acting course she’d taken as a “fun elective,” but ended up hating. In an instant, she’s back in the passenger seat–the scene of the crime–feeling a queasy mixture of shame, indignation and disappointment.  

“And a wedge of lime, but on the side.”

_Ok, so she’d frozen up in front of Paige. But she has a second chance to confront this now. Fuck with him a little bit. It’s petty. _But why not?_ He’d evolved into a full-on, professional monster in the last few years. That’s an easy enough reason to punish him._

__

But a little nagging voice whispers that it’s not about The First Order. Not really.

She hadn’t felt much shame about Skywalker until that moment: the look on Ben’s face. He’d said some pretty hurtful things later, but it was really the look that turned a simple indiscretion into something consequential. It hadn’t seemed like such an obvious mistake before.

She’d spiraled through a series of rationalizations since then. _This kind of thing happens all the time_ . _It ended as quickly as it began. No one got hurt. There have been worse lapses in judgment._

But this one hadn’t healed right.

With her ire freshly ramped up, Rey flips around, kneeling on her seat, propping herself up over the headrest.

“University of Chicago, right?” she says loudly, attracting the attention of the man in the middle seat next to him.

Kylo meets her eyes for a half-second before defensively looking away.

“Yes.”

“Did we ever—?” she mimes intercourse with her hands.

He looks momentarily stunned. Middle Seat Man raises his eyebrows, suddenly invested.

“No! No, Jesus.” He turns to Middle Seat Man. “We drove from Chicago to New York together four years ago.”

“Would you two like to sit together?” the man offers.

“Great!” Rey says, just as Kylo opens his mouth to object. Rey and Middle Seat Man force him out of his seat to make the switch and Rey manages to accidentally-on-purpose brush way too close against him.  

She shoves her bag under the seat in front of her before quite obviously looking him up and down. He looks a little older, maybe a bit more intimidating now, possibly even bigger in the shoulders. There’s a slight coldness in his eyes now, different than the needy, searching quality that Rey had committed to memory.

She’d heard of Kylo Ren in the abstract, but it wasn’t until she saw a clip of him laying into some hapless pundit on MSNBC that she made the connection. She has a pretty good idea of why he’s wearing an expensive suit and flying to Washington. He’s some kind of conservative attack dog now.  

“Luke’s nephew.”

“As I recall, you were nearly my _aunt_.”

Rey is taken aback at how smoothly he returns the hostility. It’s still right under the surface, even after all this time. Clearly he hasn’t seen a therapist in the last four years.

“How is the professor these days?” she asks innocently. Rey hasn’t heard a thing about Luke in years; they had only exchanged one cordial email after she arrived in New York. Luke made it clear that he would be continuing his midlife crisis without a fuss.

“I have no idea,” he replies coldly.

“No idea? We didn’t fuck around because you were so preoccupied with him.”

“Yes, it _is_ odd that I didn’t want to share a girlfriend with my own uncle.”

“And was it worth it?” She speaks a little softer, leaning in. “Making that sacrifice?”

“You may not believe this, but I _never_ considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice.”

She doesn’t buy this for a second, even though he’s batting everything back at her. But Luke isn’t the most comfortable subject for her either, so she pivots.

“You were going to become a 'thought leader,' ” she says using air quotes. “And I believe I correctly deduced that you meant to say ‘Ayn Rand Fuckboy.’”

Kylo doesn’t respond. He studies her face like he’s trying to read her mind and predict where this is going.  He’s gotten much better at deflecting. Maybe he’s used to the hate.

The rancor keeps her mind focused, even as she feels her body involuntarily responding to something else about him. Something more...visceral. Exactly the same as before. _Don’t think about hate sex. Do_ not _imagine hate sex._

“I assume you know what I do. Don’t people in your circles have my face up on dartboards across the city?”

“Oh, yes, ‘Kylo Ren.’ Everyone in our social justice warrior clubhouse quakes in fear whenever we refresh Twitter.”

He glares slightly, but she doesn’t get the rise out of him that she’d wanted. 

She forges ahead, feeling a bit righteous, thinking of all the damage the First Order has already caused–providing a 24/7 platform for the nation’s most toxic impulses. She’s sitting next to their pseudo-intellectual poster child. Why someone who nearly had a philosophy doctorate in hand chooses to associate himself with their destructive tactics is beyond her. She probably _has_ thrown a dart at his stupid/hot face over beers at a Democratic Socialists meeting.

“Really interesting choice to create a secret identity by combining two of your family surnames into one first name. Or were you trying to make it more obvious just to embarrass them?”

“Embarrass them? Have you _met_ my family?”

“Oh, just one of them.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo can’t tell if it’s just the First Order stuff or something more personal. Is it possible that Rey both ramped up her hatred of him _and_ forgot he existed in the last four years? She’s swinging at him so hard it’s almost like she workshopped a series of insults in preparation for this moment.

But having landed yet another jab about his uncle, she’s calmly sipping from a giant Nalgene bottle and checking her phone. She’s like the human incarnation of the nail polish emoji.

“So, you and Paige?” she asks.

He nods, even letting the corners of his mouth turn up into the slightest smile at the mention of her name. It could be a trap, but he can’t help it.

“You’ve been together like—three weeks?”

“A month. How’d you know?”

“I can _feel_ the waves of N.R.E rolling off you.”  He looks puzzled. “New relationship energy. You only take someone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship. Classic mistake. I never do it at the beginning.”

“Why not?”

“Because eventually you get too comfortable, things move on and you _don’t_ take someone to the airport, and I never want anyone to be able to say to me, ‘How come you never take me to the airport anymore?’ I like to level set, like—" she gestures just above her navel "—here. Expectations management.”

“So you’re a long-term relationship expert now?”  It suddenly occurs to Kylo that her antagonistic streak might not have all that much to do with him.

“You’d be surprised at the things you can become an expert in after four years.” She takes another sip of water. “You know, I kind of forgot how gorgeous Paige is. I hadn’t seen her since—”

A familiar panicky sensation flickers at the back of his mind.

“Please, _please_ don’t say you two ‘experimented’ late one night after you had a few drinks.”

“' _Experimented_ ’?” she scrunches up her nose, letting out a little laugh and it is _definitely not adorable._

He looks at her with raised eyebrows, waiting for some kind of confirmation.

“Nothing really happened.” She shrugs. “Maybe a make out or two a long time ago. Not that I wouldn’t have been _totally_ down for more.” She pokes him in the arm, just a touch too hard. “Hey, you know, now we have two things in common. We both think Paige is a beautiful woman—”

He braces himself.

“—and right now we’re both picturing me and her ‘experimenting.’ ”

His mind hadn’t actually jumped to that imagery yet, _but now?  Fuck._

It's probably a trap. And if this continues, he’s in immediate danger of getting hard in an extremely inconvenient location. 

“It’s amazing,” he says, turning to face her. “You look like a nice, normal person, but actually you’re the angel of death.”

“Aren’t _you_ the one fighting to kick millions of people off their health insurance?”

“So you _have_ heard of me.”

She scoffs.

“That’s also a gross mischaracterization—” he adds.

“Sure it is. So, are you and Paige gonna get married?” Rey asks without missing a beat.  

“We’ve only known each other a month. And neither of us is looking to get married right now.”

“I’m getting married,” she says, casually taking another sip of water.

Kylo does an actual double take.

“You are?”

“Yep.”

“ _You_ are?”

“Yes.” She nods. He waits for her to say “psych!” ironically. But...nothing. She actually looks calmer, like she’s not gearing up for another verbal sparring match.

“Who is he?” The question comes out more incredulous than he intends.

“Amilyn Holdo. She’s a litigator. She’s incredibly brilliant. She’s keeping her name.”

Kylo exhales loudly, shaking his head, almost— _but not quite_ —smiling at the absurdity of this revelation.

“ _You’re_ getting married.”

“Why are you so amused?”

“It’s just so—” he searches for the right word, “— _traditional_ of you.”

“You’d be amazed what falling madly in love can do for you.” She pulls out her phone (not nearly as wrecked as the one she had before) and pulls up a photo. “It’s hard to put into words. She’s, like, _luminous_. A total goddess.”

The woman in the picture is very attractive...and probably in her late forties.

_Huh._

It takes him a moment to process all this new data, but a theory is starting to take shape. _Another significantly older partner?_ He desperately wants to ask whether the woman was her law professor, but before he can decide on the wording, Rey continues.

“Plus, you just get to a certain point where you get tired of the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

“You swipe right, you exchange some carefully curated chit chat, you decide it’s safe enough to meet for a drink. You have a few glasses of wine, you talk about the shows you both watch. You find at least one bit of overlap, so you go back to their place to Netflix and chill and obviously you have sex. And the minute you finish–assuming you finish, which—don’t get me started on that—the minute you finish, you know what goes through your head?”

Kylo plays along, as if he, too, is able to smoothly transition his opinion on _House of Cards_ into foreplay.

“How long do I have to lie here and hold this person before I can get up and go home? Is thirty seconds enough?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re thinking?”

“There are two kinds of people,” Rey explains, “the ones who want to cuddle and the ones who just want to get the hell out of there and sleep in their own beds.”

She studies his face.

“You definitely want to be held. You might even be a little spoon.” _Little spoon?_

“No, I—”

“How long do you like to be held afterwards? All night, right?” She shakes her head. “See, that’s the problem. Somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem.”

“I don’t have a problem.” _Little spoon?_

“Yes you do.”

He stares at the headrest in front of him. Nothing she’s saying is true, in practice. Paige certainly isn’t much of a cuddler. Neither of them steals the sheets. They don’t elbow each other in the face in the morning. In fact, they wake up on opposite sides of the king bed, barely within arm’s reach. The whole idea of being held is foreign to him.

So why does he feel _called out_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re following along with When Harry Met Sally scenes, this brings us to the end of the plane scene and the next chapter will include the moving walkway plus some “stuff I just made up.” 
> 
> I’ve had a couple people ask about Ben’s political leanings and my stance is that I’m going to leave it a little vague (as SW has) but I’m also kind of basing him on people I know who have vacillated between libertarian and anarchist beliefs. He’s not an insane conspiracy person. I see him more as an “Aaron Sorkin conservative." (Any other West Wing fans out there? If so, you get me.) But you'll get more context in later chapters. 
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/jd2dzvr8ji3gahg69cl282kxu/playlist/4UGySQQcsTrjXIaQn8zgmd) for Chapter 3 and 4.


	4. Obstacle #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to need an update on the faceless woman situation,” Rey insists, as the plane makes its final descent. “How are you dealing with the fact that your girlfriend actually _has_ a face?”
> 
> In the last four years, he’d stepped up his sexual fantasy game a bit from the vague, faceless woman to a much more specific set of scenes. If he’s honest, Rey has been a guest star in a few of them.
> 
> “This little game of yours again?”
> 
> “It’s a solid way to kill 10 minutes. Double or nothing?”
> 
> It’s probably an ambush.
> 
> “You want to wager two hours of driving time for a trip we completed four years ago?”
> 
> “Okay. Higher stakes...” She drums her fingers on the arm rest. “Come up with something better than what I did last time and I’ll buy you a drink. If you can’t, you’re buying me two drinks.”
> 
> “So either way, you want to spend more time with me?”
> 
> “Good point,” she admits with a nod. “How about a gift card?”
> 
> “No, I’m good with the drinks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has one scene out of order, as a flashback. Chronologically, it would have happened between Chapter 3 and 4. I indicate that part with this divider ---*---, so I hope it’s clear. This chapter is definitely more in Explicit territory.

On the moving walkway, Kylo is scrolling through his inbox when Rey catches up to him on his left, wobbling a little bit on her heels. The way she’d raced off the plane, he’d wondered if he went too far.

“Can I tell you something?” She doesn’t wait for him to agree. “I don’t really want this job. I just have so many loans and the base salary is…a lot.” Her voice is slightly breathless. “Amilyn says these should be my sell-out years. I could put in my time at McKinsey and then do whatever I want later.”

“The hopey-changey stuff?” he suggests. It elicits a little half-smile from her, which triggers a pleasant rush in him.

“Being a full-time social justice warrior doesn’t pay as well as you’d think.”

“I’m not going to say ‘I told you so,’ except—wait—I _am_. I literally told you that four years ago.”

“It’s cute that you thought I was actually listening to your diatribes.” She takes her right earring off and puts it back on. “What do you think? Would you hire me to fix your terrible company with a PowerPoint deck?”

“Why do you care what I think?” he asks cautiously.

“I don’t. I’m just really fucking nervous and I don’t know anyone else in this airport who’s going to listen to me spin about this.”

She’s agitated and they’re almost to the end of the walkway, so he decides to be blunt.

“I can’t picture you at McKinsey.” 

Does her face fall when he says it?

“Shit,” she says under her breath. “I thought you, of all people, would get me amped up to embrace the dark side of management consulting.”

“At least I'm honest.” 

“I have loans, you know. So many loans. I’m still supplying on the side to pay my rent.”

“What?”

“You know. To NYU kids.”

He leans in and, like a dumbass, stage whispers, “Drugs?”

“No, no. Just weed. Very small time. Side hustle.”

Kylo rubs his forehead, relieved that he didn’t get pulled further into her insanity years ago.

“I mean, it’s actually thanks to you that I got a foothold in the business.” _Huh?_ “You giving me the ride, I mean.”

“You needed a ride because you were afraid to fly.”

“What?” Now _she_ looks quizzical. “I just sat next to you on a plane.”

“That’s why you needed the ride to New York. Fear of flying? That’s what—“

“I had several ounces of Luke’s weed in old shampoo bottles in my bag. I couldn’t fly with that.”

He stops walking, waiting for her to say she’s kidding, but her expression hasn’t changed.

“Unbelievable.” He shakes his head.

She stops and turns around.

“I thought you knew! I assumed—”

He’s not looking at her anymore, just straight ahead, almost expressionless. _Not those fucking words again._

_Fuck Luke._

“I can’t believe that four years later, I’m still getting fucking clowned on by that asshole. He doesn’t even have the balls to actually face me. He just keeps sending _you_ to fuck with me.”

This is exactly why Snoke insists on the “Kylo Ren” persona. It’s humiliating how quickly he can lose himself. Weak. _All this uncontrolled emotional baggage bullshit that—_

Rey puts her hand on his shoulder. The spiraling slows at the contact.

“Hey. I won’t bring him up again.” He looks at her. “He kind of—discarded me, actually. I guess that’s, like, the third thing we have in common.” She pauses. “I may have taken an extra half from his stash, if it makes you feel better.”

_It doesn’t._

She takes her hand off his shoulder and they look at each other for a few moments, until a long chain of traveling college athletes cuts between them.

“I’ll just...walk ahead,” Rey offers, moving with the flow of passengers again, leaving him standing. She seems to look back, but one of the athletes is in the way and he loses sight of her. 

* * *

That afternoon, Kylo Ren is in a tedious strategy meeting with a group of lobbyists, ironing out some Snoke-devised talking points. The messaging is pure trash and he foresees an evening spent in front of his laptop, finessing the language into usable soundbites.

A notification flashes on the lock screen of his personal device, which gets about .08% of the activity as his First Order phone. It’s pretty much limited to Paige and various meal delivery services. But this isn’t Paige texting him.

He sees the message before he sees the sender.

Staying over?  
  


He grabs the phone and holds it under the table, thankful that his mere presence, rather than active participation, at the meeting is adequate. There’s not a sender name, but when he opens the text, there’s an existing conversation arranging a meeting on the University of Chicago campus in July of 2010.

He’d considered adding her as an actual contact when they were both starting out in New York, after he severed things with Luke ( _fuck him_ ) once and for all. But it seemed like tempting fate (or a drunk text) to make her so easily reachable. Of course, he hadn’t _deleted_ the texts either.

**Kylo:** Who is this?  
  
**Rey:** I’m sorry, the response we were looking for was “new phone, who dis?”  
  
So are you?  
  
**Kylo:** Am I what?  
  
**Rey:** Staying over?  
  
**Kylo:** Yes.  
  
**Rey:** Dinner?  
  


His brain immediately starts navigating the “if-this-then-that” pathways of every possible response to this question; his body feels an involuntary shock of excitement.

He’s still internally debating a response when another text comes through.

**Rey:** as friends obvs  
  
**Kylo:** Are we friends?  
  
**Rey:** Uh...yes? How do you define 'friends'?  
  
You seemed pretty friendly...  
  
at the end of the flight.  
  
**Kylo:** And your definition of friendship is fucking with me for two hours? When I can't escape?  
  
**Rey:** 2 hrs? you wish  
  


He has no fucking clue what is under discussion at this strategy meeting anymore.

I invited you to dinner.  
  
i.e. you forcing the server to write down a lot of ridiculous substitutions and requests.  
  
What were you hoping I meant, Solo?  
  


He’s sweating now. He needs to get out of this room. Feigning an important call, he excuses himself and rushes into the men’s room so he can devote his full attention to this particular conversation.

He quickly buys himself some time to strategize.

**Kylo:** Give me a minute, I just finished a meeting.  
  


Putting the phone down, he exhales, resting his palms on the marble of the restroom sink. Then he opens the Notes app on his phone just to confirm that it happened as he remembers.

\---*---

“I’m going to need an update on the faceless woman situation,” Rey insists, as the plane makes its final descent. “How are you dealing with the fact that your girlfriend actually _has_ a face?”

In the last four years, he’d stepped up his sexual fantasy game a bit from the vague, faceless woman to a much more specific set of scenes. If he’s honest, Rey has been a guest star in a few of them.

“This little game of yours again?”

“It’s a solid way to kill 10 minutes. Double or nothing?”

It’s probably an ambush.

“You want to wager two hours of driving time for a trip we completed four years ago?”

“Okay. Higher stakes...” She drums her fingers on the arm rest. “Come up with something better than what I did last time and I’ll buy you a drink. If you can’t, you’re buying me two drinks.”

“So either way, you want to spend more time with me?”

“Good point,” she admits with a nod. “How about a gift card?”

“No, I’m good with the drinks.”

Her presumptuous “little spoon” comment still burns in his ears.

“You want me to make up a fantasy right now?”

“You brought a knife to a gunfight last time. I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself.”

“What about all the other people?” he asks, glancing around.

She holds up her phone.

“Notes app.”

He barely contains a smirk. This is easier. Much easier. He’s far better at writing things out than talking, but she doesn’t know that. He opens the app, thinking carefully before typing:

**Kylo:** I meet her at the bar of the hotel where she’s staying.

It’s an innocuous enough beginning to buy him more time to think.

Rey types on her device.

**Rey:** DOES SHE HAVE A FACE??? 

He glances at her, unsure about how far to take this.

_Fuck it._

**Kylo:** Yes.  
  
  
Yours.

She blushes instantly when he shows her the screen. He feels a swell of pride at provoking an involuntary response. And after she’d spent most of the flight laying into him...

**Kylo:** I brought a gun this time.

In a plane, the rules are different. As long as they’re in flight, this is still fine. Just killing time.

**Kylo:** We would pretend like we were going to have a drink, but maybe we would just...go upstairs to your room.

**Kylo:** You would fumble with the key because you’re nervous.

**Rey:** I am not. 

**Kylo:** Yes you are.  
  
You’d walk over toward the bed, but I pull you over to the mirror.

**Rey:** You, unable to resist a mirror?  
  
I’m shocked. 

**Kylo:** It’s for your benefit, not mine.

**Rey:** Liar.

**Kylo:** No, you’re facing the mirror, I’m facing you.

**Rey:** You’re like seven feet tall, I wouldn’t be able to see anything. 

**Kylo:** I guess I’ll have to get on my knees then.

There’s a silence as he waits for some kind of retort, text or verbal, but nothing comes out. Just the sound of uneven breathing. She glances up, barely meeting his eyes. _Flustered._ It spurs him on, even though it's just getting more and more....wrong.

**Kylo:** I pull up your skirt.  
  
Slowly.

This is all bullshit, he would never be able to control himself this way, but he’s always in control in these fantasies so it’s fine. It’s just words.

**Kylo:** Should I guess what I’ll find underneath?  
  
Something lacy?

**Rey:** Days of the week underpants.  
  
Wrong day.

Apparently she recovered enough to be a brat again.

**Kylo:** I don’t care. They’re coming off.

She visibly swallows. _This is definitely not an okay activity for acquaintances._

**Kylo:** Stop me anytime. 

She doesn’t.

**Kylo:** I tell you to put your hands on the mirror for balance.

She opens her mouth as if to argue.

**Kylo:** And you comply without arguing because you’re still wearing those heels you can barely walk in under the best of circumstances.

She closes her mouth and steals little glances at his screen as he types.

**Kylo:** I pull your leg over my shoulder. You’re so wet already.  
  
It’s like I could just make one little motion with my fingers and you’d come.

She shifts in her seat.

**Kylo:** But we can do better than that.  
  
Right?

There’s a long pause before she types, barely looking at her phone.

**Rey:** I dunno. Can we? 

He feels like he just ran a stop sign.

**Kylo:** I start sucking on your clit, gentle at first. And then harder. Until your legs start shaking and you can barely stand anymore.

Her head snaps up. The car has swerved off the road and is currently hurtling through multiple orange and white barriers. He keeps typing.

**Kylo:** I have a theory about you.  
  
I think you’re LOUD.  
  
I think you'd like screaming my name.  
  
I think the way you moan is probably fucking obscene.  
  
  
Am I right?

She keeps glancing between the phone and his face, which he’s trying to keep at neutral as possible. Her face? _Not neutral._

**Kylo:** I’ll take that as a yes.

She rolls her eyes. 

**Kylo:** Do you want to come?

She finally looks him in the eye.

**Kylo:** Say it.

“What?”

**Kylo:** Go on. Say it. OUT LOUD.

“I owe you a fucking drink.”

“Ah, you do.”

They don’t speak again until the plane lands.

\------

His phone buzzes and he snaps back to reality, half hard.

**Rey:** Are you there?  
  
Can I tell you something?  
  


His heart pounds. For a second, he worries that she somehow saw the scene replay inside his head through some mystical shared connection.

**Kylo:** I'm here.  
  
**Rey:** I bombed the interview. Maybe on purpose.  
  
I know it’s irrational, but I just can’t do this. You’re fucking right.  
  
And I’m a shitty person because I’ll probably lie to Amilyn about it.  
  


That’s...not what he was expecting. 

He swallows.

She’s being vulnerable with him. It’s a foreign sensation, almost an actual pang in his chest, as he lets the adrenaline fade. No one ever opens up to him like this. _Probably for good reason._

**Rey:** I just..  
  
I feel like I’m failing.  
  
I’m afraid of Amilyn leaving because my unemployed ass is a drag on her life.   
  
I can’t tell my friends because they’ll just warn me not to get married.  
  
No one thinks I should get married.  
  


An ellipsis appears and disappears.

**Rey:** I feel so alone..  
  


Kylo breathes in and types without thinking.

**Kylo:** You're not alone.  
  


He stares at the words he just typed. They seem like foreign language.

**Rey:** Neither are you.  
  


He lays the phone on the counter. _What is this?_

There’s a bit of a wait and then:

**Fist bump emoji**  
  
  


The sheer unexpectedness elicits something like a laugh from him. But it’s mixed with a twinge of disappointment at such a platonic symbol, as opposed to, say, heart eyes. (Not that he ever uses emojis himself, and certainly not the heart eyes one, but he can translate them because they’re Paige’s primary form of digital communication.) 

Still, something about her openness inspires a little seed of an idea.

**Kylo:** Actually...  
  
**Kylo:** I might have a lead for you.  
  
**Rey:**?  
  


Kylo Ren hasn’t done a favor for anyone, maybe ever.

**Kylo:** Lando Calrissian. He’s a big deal political consultant.  
  
Based in the city.  
  
**Rey:** Yeah. I know him.  
  
Of him, I mean  
  
**Kylo:** He’s my uncle. Or, I used to call him Uncle.  
  
Part of my parents’ inner circle back in the day.  
  


It pains him to type that out, but he keeps going.

**Kylo:** I’m not sure if my introduction would help or hurt to be honest, but he’d like you.  
  
He always had a soft spot for me.  
  
**Rey:** WAT.  
  
I was such a bitch to you. TODAY.  
  
mere hours ago.  
  
you tried to murder me with your notes app.  
  
You'd do this for ME???  
  
**Kylo:** Apparently.  
  
I'm as surprised as you are.  
  
Text me your email and I’ll make the intro  
  


Another text appears with her contact info.

**Rey:** This is so weird, I’ve never used a connection before in my life. I never HAD a connection.  
  
**Kylo:** I never really helped anyone before, so…  
  
Big day.  
  
**Rey:** Ben. Thank you.  
  
Sincerely...  
  


There’s another pause. He waits for her to write more. The ellipsis appears and disappears.

Suddenly,

**Heart eyes emoji**

A palpable pop of affection and validation. It’s strange, but not unwelcome.

**Rey:** Hey...  
  
This is weird, but  
  
You weren't serious when you typed all that stuff on the plane, right?  
  


He reads the text over and over again, trying to decode whether the wording leans in one direction or another. He punts.

**Kylo:** Did you want me to be?  
  


There's the longest wait yet between texts. At least it feels like it.

**Rey:** I humbly admit that your fantasy skills have vastly improved.  
  
I salute you. Or Paige. She must really inspire you.  
  


_Paige_. Fuck. He feels the guilt wash over him. Guilt and disappointment. Which makes him feel guiltier. 

**Kylo:** She really does.  
  


His rationalizations seem so fucking stupid now. He opens the contacts on his phone and taps out a short email to Lando.

Kylo washes his hands, even though he only stood at the sink. (He can’t bring himself to exit a restroom without doing so.) He prepares to sit through another hour of listening to Snoke’s talking points, followed by an evening of rewriting Snoke’s talking points.

On the walk back to the meeting room, he deletes the text conversation, the notes, and Rey’s number, berating himself every step of the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. So I have this weird head canon that if Harry and Sally HAD gone to dinner together at this point in the movie, they would have had sex and regretted it. I don’t know why, that is just my feeling. I tried to lean into that theory a little bit here and give Kylo a chance to, uh, demonstrate his skill with the force. He is really extra. 
> 
> McKinsey is a very real consulting firm. 
> 
> Obstacle #2 is one of my favorite Interpol songs. If you were in NYC in the 2000s, you saw the dudes from Interpol _everywhere._ If anyone wants to talk about Carlos D, hit me up on [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/).
> 
> To all the Luke stans who hate me: “you’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right.”  
> This is the last mention of him for a good long while. When we meet these two in 2018, we will actually see them interact with other people!


	5. if i ever feel better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 2018. Both Ben and Rey are having some trouble with their relationships. And we expand the cast of characters. 
> 
> \-----
> 
> “And you know what I found?”
> 
> “What?”
> 
> Ben takes off his coat, mentally preparing for the onslaught of questions.
> 
> “They just bought a dining room table. He and his wife just went out and spent six thousand dollars on a dining room table.” 
> 
> “Where? Was it ABC Carpet?”
> 
> “The point isn’t where. The point is, he’s never going to leave her.” 
> 
> “You’ve known this for two years.”
> 
> “You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for the amazing comments. I know sometimes my curveballs are insane (404 Luke not Found, weirdly intense smut texting out of nowhere), but I think it's more fun that way? 
> 
> That said, this chapter follows When Harry Met Sally very closely, with mostly verbatim dialogue because YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE PERFECTION THAT IS CARRIE FISHER. 
> 
> Leia’s occupation is based on a real person, Cindy Gallop, who is pretty famous in the advertising/creative industry for loudly calling out sexism and general not giving a f*ck anymore. She has a start up called Make Love, Not Porn that has a pretty interesting mission. This is my dumb tribute to her.

2018

 

Ben Solo makes his way through the crowd of white, upper middle class twenty- and thirty-somethings on their phones mobbed around the entrance to Freemans.  _ Fucking Sunday brunch hipster bullshit.  _ He’s never understood this phenomenon where otherwise sane people spend hours of their weekend huddled in the cold outside overcrowded restaurants, waiting for their names to be called, like they’re at a cattle call. 

He’s been dreading this meal.  Ben has “news” and he’s already delayed sharing it.  The prospect of having this particular conversation over the table in the middle of a crowded, noisy restaurant makes him briefly consider sending a text instead and calling it a day. But he’d catch hell for that, too, so he steps inside. 

He’s a head taller than almost everyone, and while he normally hates that this makes him more conspicuous (especially these days), he can easily spot the two women he’s looking for from the hostess stand. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, squeezing past the closely jammed tables and around the waiter who’s refilling the water glasses.

“So, I looked through his pockets, okay?” his mother says to her assistant, Kaydel, as Ben gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“Why?” asks Kaydel, as if there could be more than one answer to that question.

Ben turns to the waiter while Leia holds court. 

“I want a Campari and soda, but here’s how I want it,” Ben instructs. “I want the Campari in a glass with ice, and the soda on the side, but in a bottle. I don’t want the soda in a glass, I want to mix it myself.” The waiter rolls his eyes. 

It appears Leia is already well into her ( _second?_ ) bloody mary. She doesn’t fuck with mimosas. 

“And you know what I found?”

“What?”

He takes off his coat, mentally preparing for the onslaught of questions.

“They just bought a dining room table. He and his wife just went out and spent six thousand dollars on a dining room table.” 

“Where? Was it ABC Carpet?”

“The point isn’t where, Kaydel. The point is, he’s never going to leave her.” 

“You’ve known this for two years.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right.”

Ben sighs, burying himself in the menu. He’s desensitized himself to his family’s various dramas over the years, as a coping mechanism, but his mother’s personal life is a perpetual source of irritation. 

“Why can’t you find someone single?” Kaydel asks innocently. It’s not the first time they’ve had this back and forth. This week. “There must be lots of nice divorced men your age. Maybe even widowers? Have you googled ‘tinder for older people’?” She types something into her giant phone. “I’m coming up with tons of results here...Stitch, SeniorPeopleMeet.” Leia shoots an icy glare at her. “This is how people find each other now. I mean, even Ben found someone.” 

“Ben got the last good one,” Leia says, turning her full attention to him for the first time since he arrived.  

That’s his cue. 

“Paige and I broke up.” He puts down the menu. Both women are all over him in an instant.

“What—”

“When?”

He takes a “clearing breath,” just like his therapist suggests. It rarely clears anything. 

“Monday.” 

“You waited  _ three _ days to tell us?” Leia scolds. 

“Sorry I didn’t inform your assistant as soon as it happened.”  _ Clearing breath _ . 

“He’s obviously upset, Leia--”

“I’m not that upset. We’ve been growing apart for awhile.” He toys with the silverware.  

Leia fixes her gaze on him. He looks her in the eye, as if to prove how “not that upset” he is.

“But you were a couple. You were together. You had someone to go places with. You had a date on national holidays.” 

“Paige’s Insta was  _ dream _ ,” Kaydel whispers. 

“Turns out, the aftermath of my career imploding didn’t exactly fit with her personal brand,” he says, leaning back in the chair. 

“She does have really amazing taste,” says Kaydel, under her breath. 

The waiter brings his drink, creating a temporary distraction. 

“God, he’s in such great shape, considering,” Kaydel comments, once again speaking to Leia as if they’re both watching a reality show. 

“I’ve had a few days to get used to it and I feel okay,” he says, not looking up. It’s basically the truth. He left the apartment _several times_ since Monday. He could even go to the gym later. _Maybe it_ is _okay._

Leia nods, taking her phone out of her bag. 

“Good. Then you’re ready.”

“No!” Ben protests. 

“How else do you think you do it?”

“Stop.”  _ Clearing breath! _

“You set me up with the last guy I dated, Leia. You might be on a roll.” Kaydel sits forward, peeking over at Leia’s phone.

She flicks through her contacts, manicured nails clicking on the screen. 

“I’ve got the perfect girl.” 

She shows the screen to Kaydel, who nods eagerly. 

“Now, some men might not find her attractive, but you might.” She turns to Kaydel. “He’s not picky about chins.”

“I’m not ready yet,” he insists, resisting Leia’s uncanny ability to turn any conversation in her preferred direction. 

“I thought you just said you were over her,” she says impatiently. 

“I  _ am _ over her. But I’m in a mourning period.” 

“Leia, he does  _ look  _ like he’s in mourning,” Kaydel points out. “Just normally.”

“Wait, wait, I got a better one—” She shows Kaydel the screen again. 

“Look, there is no point in my going out with someone I might actually like if I met her at the right time, but who, right now, has  _ no _ chance of being anything to me but a transitional person.” 

He cringes at the thought of starting over, having to do those “informational interview” dates where you tell a condensed version of your life story.  _ Explaining the last six months to a stranger? _

Leia leans back, setting down the phone. 

“Okay, but don’t wait too long. Do you remember David Warsaw? His wife left him, and everyone said, ‘Give him time, don’t move in too fast,' and six months later he was dead.”

Ben stares at her incredulously.

“What are you saying? I should marry someone right away in case she’s about to die? Or in case _ I’m  _ about to die?”

“At least you could say you were married,” Kaydel says with a shrug. 

“I’m saying the right girl for you might be out there right now and if you don’t grab her, someone else will and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your wife.”

The words “your wife” hang uncomfortably as Ben and Leia look at each other in some kind of stand-off. 

Ben’s phone lights up with a single word text from Kaydel:

**Rey:** Grindr?  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey sinks down in the padded folding chair between Finn and Poe as they look up at two amped up, toned female wrestlers circling each other in the ring. 

Han Solo reaches over Finn for one of the two beers she clutches in her hands. 

“Thanks, kid.” 

She holds the cup firmly, glancing at him, but not turning her head. 

“Oh, did you want one?”

He raises his eyebrows. She stares blankly into the middle distance, the only expressionless person in the venue. Taking Rey to a women’s wrestling event had been Poe’s idea, and on paper, it sounded like the perfect distraction. But it’s not helping because the fierce, half-naked women taunting each other only remind her of Amilyn. 

Rey takes a huge gulp of lukewarm beer. She  _ hears _ the words her friends are saying, but she can’t process them. Nothing has felt real for days.

“She’s had a rough week, Han,” Finn offers. 

“Hey. I’ve been divorced. I’ve had a rough _fifteen_ _years_. _You’re_ buying.”

With a resigned sigh, Finn gets up to find the beer line, giving Rey’s knee a squeeze as he scoots past her. 

Han moves over. She barely notices. She doesn’t even remember when she put on her least-flattering pair of jeans and an old NYU Law hoodie to meet them at the venue. 

Little things occur to her out of the blue. Practical stuff.  _ Which utility bills are in Amilyn’s name? Are they going to stay on the same Verizon family plan? Was Amilyn paying for that?  _

“So what happened?”

Rey has been mentally reciting the the story in a rote, matter-of-fact way for the last few days, but she just can’t bring herself to say it out loud right now. She looks at Poe. He knows the story and he’s good at talking. 

“Friday, Amilyn comes home,” he says to Han, literally over her head. “She tells Rey, ‘I don’t know if I want to be married anymore.’ You know, like it’s the institution, like it’s nothing personal, just something she’s thinking about in a casual kind of way.”

Rey had stayed calm. She’d remembered the mirroring exercises from couples therapy. But how do you mirror _ that _ ? _ “Okay, what I hear you saying is that you don’t want to be married anymore. Am I reflecting that accurately?”  _

“Rey says, ‘Let’s take some time to think about it, don’t make any rash decisions.” 

Amilyn never makes rash decisions. She’s always been deliberate. Calm. Steadfast. Sure, they’d had some tension in the last few years.  _ Like any couple _ . 

“So the next day, Amilyn says she’s thought about it, and she wants a ‘trial separation.’ Just to try it. She says they can still date—”

“Who the hell wants to date their own wife?” Han interjects.

“—like that cushions the blow.  I mean,  _ Amilyn’s _ the one who wanted to try the open marriage. And then she has the balls to tell Rey she can’t date men? And when that wasn’t good enough, she tells her to stop seeing other women.”

Han’s dubious expression reminds Rey that Amilyn’s normie friends will definitely blame this on nonmonogamy.  _ Who’s to say that’s not the truth?   _ She thinks about the time one of Amilyn’s friends referred to her as a “manic pixie dream girl,” as if it was still 2005.

“Here’s the fucked up part: now  _ Amilyn  _ wants to fuck around with other people. Can you believe that bullshit? So Rey just comes out and says ‘Don’t you love me anymore?’ And you know what Amilyn says?” He pauses for dramatic effect. “‘I don’t know if I’ve  _ ever _ loved you.’”

There’s a huge crash as one of the wrestlers rolls under the lower rope and out of the ring in front of them. 

“Ooh. That’s harsh,” says Han. It’s unclear if he’s referring to the wrestling match or the reality of Rey’s life. “You don’t bounce back from that right away.” 

Rey takes another enormous gulp of beer. Hearing someone else talk makes this feel like it’s someone else’s fucked up life under discussion. It’s more comfortable to be a ghost. 

“I mean, I’m a writer,” Poe insists. “I know dialogue. And that’s particularly harsh.”

The wrestler is on her feet again and rolls herself back into the ring. 

“And then Amilyn says she just found out that somebody in her office is going to South America, so she can sublet his apartment. Interesting coincidence, right? And just then, the doorbell rings—”

“The new woman was at the door?” 

“—the words are still hanging in the air, like a little balloon connected to her mouth.” 

“Like a cartoon,” Han offers. 

“Rey answers the door and there are  _ movers _ are there. Suspicious, right? So Rey’s like, ‘When did you call these movers?’ She doesn’t fucking answer. So Rey asks the movers, ‘When did you book this gig?”

Finn returns with more beer, just as the same wrestler comes flying across the ring in their direction bouncing off the top rope at the last second. Rey downs one of the beers in her hand and grabs another out of Finn’s hand. 

Han looks at Finn expectantly. Finn hands him the other beer with a sigh. 

“And the movers just stand there, three huge guys, right? One of them is wearing a shirt that says, ‘Don’t fuck with Mister Zero.’ So Rey asks her again, ‘When did you arrange this?’ And you know what Amilyn says?  ‘A week ago.’ She knew this for a  _ whole fucking week _ and didn’t tell her. She claims she didn’t want to ruin Rey’s birthday.’”

She doesn’t even remember what happened on her birthday.  _ Did they have dinner?  _ Did Amilyn actually go out and buy some shitty present knowing she was about to drop a bomb on her life?

Both wrestlers come tumbling out of the ring, taking the fight into the stands as the crowd around them goes nuts.

Han turns to Rey, shouting over the chaos.

“Mister Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?” 

Rey moves her head to the right to avoid a flying cup from commotion in front of them.

“Mister Zero knew,” Poe answers. 

“Shit,” says Han, shaking his head. 

“I haven’t even told you the bad part.” 

“What could be worse than Mister Zero knowing?” Han asks Finn, who refuses to participate.

Rey feels tears welling up and she swallows hard. Finn reaches across Han to squeeze her shoulder, shooting Poe a dirty look. 

“It’s all a fucking lie,” Poe says. “She’s in love with a  _ man _ . They’ve been seeing each other for months. She moved in with him.” 

“How do you know?” Han asks.

A tear slips down the corner of her right eye. 

“Rey and Finn followed her and stood outside the building. It’s really humiliating.”

“Poe, are you done?” Finn reprimands. 

One of the wrestlers drags the other back into the ring, setting up a finisher.

“It’s fine,” Rey says quietly. “I knew it’d happen. The whole time, I knew it was just an illusion and one day she’d leave and I’d be alone again. Everyone leaves. Everyone always fucking leaves.” 

She chugs the rest of the beer in her right hand, trying to hurry along the alcohol-soaked numbness.

“Not everyone,” Finn says. “You have us. We’re your family.” 

_ Easy for him to say with a wife and child who  _ actually _ love him.  _

“She wasn’t good for you, kid,” Han says.  

“She had all the power and she didn’t treat you like an equal,” Poe adds.

“Anything else?!” Rey yells.  Despite the crowd noise, some spectators turn to look at her. 

“Yeah, actually,” says Poe, as Rey glares at him. “Marriages don’t break up on account of infidelity. I read a great Medium post about that. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong. ” 

“Oh yeah? Well that symptom is  _ fucking my wife _ !” she screams.

The wrestler hits her opponent with a diving crossbody, as the crowd explodes into cheers. 

Poe nudges her. 

“At least you can go back to fucking anyone you want.”

Rey takes Han’s half-empty beer from his hand, looks Poe straight in the eye, and slowly pours it onto his crotch. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Leia and Ben are engaged in a standoff on the corner of Mercer and Grand. She’d asked to meet him under the suspect pretense of needing some help “picking out new sneakers at the NikeLab store.” But as soon as they’d exited the store, having browsed for a suspiciously short amount of time with no purchases in hand, Leia had not-so-subtly steered him over to the Babeland store down the block. 

“I’m not going in there with you. That’s a hard ‘no.’”

“It’s not for me, it’s for you. You know, they have entire product lines for men. It’s very evolved.” 

“Absolutely not.”

“Ben, it’s like an Apple Store in there. Jay-Z and Beyonce shop here. I stop in all the time. They have amazing educational workshops. Didn’t I teach you to celebrate your body? Encourage you to express yourself, sexually?”

Ben rubs his temples.

A few tourists brush past them, baffled looks on their faces. 

Last year, Leia had resigned from her Executive Creative Director position at a global ad agency to found a startup she called “Sex is for Every Body.” Their mission was to provide a platform for  women to communicate realistically and openly about sex.  _ Really openly _ .  _ Like, incredibly openly.  _

Although her new line of work still causes him the occasional humiliation, Ben is quietly proud of her. After navigating the misogyny of the ad industry for so many years, she had taken a huge risk by calling the bastards out  _ very  _ publicly, jumping ship and embracing a completely new and bold endeavor. She had the balls ( _ ovaries?)  _ to do everything Ben hadn’t been able to. 

He’d limped away from the First Order with a whimper rather than a bang...and only thanks to Leia’s help behind the scenes. It’s pathetic how much he owes her. 

With a heavy sigh, he opens the door and gestures for her to enter. 

Leia isn’t exaggerating that she comes in frequently; the staff seem to know her by name. He hangs back a few paces hoping that she’ll let him pretend to be browsing on his own. Maybe the other customers would just assume he’s looking for a gift for his girlfriend. Or his wife.  _ Why would  _ anyone _ assume that I have a wife?   _

“Ben!” she shouts. Literally shouts. “Come here. Seema, I want you to meet my son.”  _ Fucking predictable. _ “He’s going through a breakup and he might need some...help.” 

After a mortifying round of introductions and elaborate product demonstrations, Leia agrees to “casually browse” on her own. Which means she tails Ben around the store, ruminating on her favorite subject. 

“I just happened to see his Amex bill.” 

Ben walks slowly past the displays. He begrudgingly admits that it is nicely arranged. Like an Apple Store. 

“What do you mean, you just happened to see it?”

Leia idly picks something up.

“He was shaving and there it was. In his briefcase.” 

He stops. 

“What if he came out and saw you looking through his briefcase?”

“You’re missing the point. I’m telling you what I found.” She moves a little closer. “He spent $520 on a nightgown for his wife. I don’t think he’s ever going to leave her.”

He furrows his brow.

“No one thinks he’s ever going to leave her.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right.”

He sighs and picks up a cone shaped vibrator, examining the controls.  _ A cone?  _  Leia nudges him, looking up at something across the store.

“Someone is staring at you near the realistic dildos.” 

Ben glances up at—sure enough—a wall display of extremely realistic dildos. 

_ It’s her. _

Rey is holding a particularly large one, turning it over in her hands, but she’s casting the occasional glance in Ben’s direction. 

Her hair is a bit longer than last time, falling down softly around her shoulders. She’s dressed casually, in jeans and a loose sweater, holding a jacket on her arm. She looks like coziness personified, despite the sleek, sterile surroundings. 

Then he notices her ACLU tote bag and sighs softly, wondering if she’s contemplating bonking him on the head with the giant dildo. 

“I know her,” he murmurs. “You’d like her. She’s married to an older woman.”

Leia is undeterred.  _ When  _ is  _ she deterred? _

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Rey. She’s a political consultant.” 

“She’s adorable.” 

“You think so?” he asks, way too casually.

Leia shoots him a look. 

“How do you know she’s married?”

“Because the last time I saw her she was getting married.”

“When was that?”

“Four years ago.”

She scoffs.

“She might not be married anymore. Does she date men, too?”

“She, uh...used to. She works for Lando. And she’s kind of obnoxious. And probably hates me. Actually she’s probably best friends with Han by now.” He omits the Luke Skywalker chapter. 

Leia has a troubling gleam in her eye. He turns to her, hoping to head off any further meddling. 

“Also, she might not remember me, so don’t—”

“Ben?”

He looks up. Rey is suddenly two feet away. 

“Uh, hi—” He puts the vibrator down, instinctively knowing that it will accidentally turn on at the worst time. 

“It  _ is _ you.” 

“It...is. Oh, this is...was Leia. My mother.” She’s already heading for the exit with a wave. Ben and Rey watch her leave. 

“You guys must have a fantastic relationship to shop here together.” 

“Oh, we weren’t—” Ben shifts his weight.

“How are you?” she asks softly. She seems more... _ subdued _ than he remembers her.

“Fine.” He nods casually.

“How’s Paige?”

“Fine. I hear she’s fine. According to Instagram.”

“You’re not together anymore?” Rey frowns. 

“Just broke up.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” He shifts uncomfortably. “What about you?”

“I’m...fine. Still at The Resistance.” She almost smiles. “Thank you for that.” He nods. 

“How’s married life?”

A strange expression passes over her face and she shifts the realistic dildo from one hand to another. 

“Not so good, actually. We’re...uh, getting a divorce.” Her mouth turns into a tight line. 

Ben is genuinely stunned for a moment. Not because of the divorce. That doesn’t really surprise him at all. It’s something about the uncharacteristic shakiness in her voice.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, actually meaning it. He rarely says this to anyone, even now that he’s “working on himself.” He even finds himself repeating it. “I’m really sorry.”

He just stops himself from reaching out to touch her shoulder.  _ Is that a thing that people do to comfort other people? Too intrusive? Too intimate? _

“When did it happen?”

“Couple of weeks ago.” She looks around. “Yeah. Pretty recent. So...”

“That’s right when Paige and I broke up.” She raises her eyebrows.

“Maybe there was something in the air. Like, Halloween couples costume season was about to expose some of the cracks in the foundation of the relationship.”

“I had to dress up as Scott Disick last year and I don’t even know what that is.” They’re both deflecting, but their hearts aren’t in it enough to laugh.  “What happened?”

Rey takes a huge breath in, shrugging her shoulders tight against the side of her head, practically grimacing. 

“She left me. Fell madly in love with an older man. A guest lecturer she brought in to talk about corporate disclosure.”

“An  _ older _ man?” 

“Yeah, ironic. Or at least, Alanis ironic.” She lets out a bitter little laugh.  “Anyway, it sounds like she and Sheldon are very happy together. Apparently they had been for months. Unbeknownst to me.”

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

“Yeah, well. What are you gonna do?” She blinks back tears and looks away for a moment.  

He considers that this may be the right moment for two actual friends to hug, but they’re not friends, so something else just slips out.

“You still owe me a drink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to keep a lot of the dialogue from When Harry Met Sally in these scenes, but I hope it doesn’t come across as though I sidelined Rey because I had Poe telling (mansplaining?) her breakup story. I realize that it could be problematic. Originally she was speaking those lines, as Harry does in the film. But I’m trying to play her pain a little more straight. Billy Crystal is a comedian and they gave him funny/deadpan repartee with his friend because that’s what he does best as a performer. But I don’t think Rey would be joking around yet, even in a dark way. I think she’s shell shocked. And I don’t think canon Rey shares much personal stuff with her friends, either, and I wanted to preserve that dynamic of her being a bit of a cypher. 
> 
> Also, Harry is supposed to be depressed in the montage where he and Sally become friends (while Sally occupies herself with non-stop activities as a distraction). So we’re going to see how that plays out in the next few chapters, but there was just something off about Rey being at all funny at that point. So I had to make Poe into a little more of a blowhard than I’d planned, but it’ll be okay. 
> 
> Babeland is near and dear to my heart. I think that a sex toy store is a decent analog for the self-help section of a bookstore. At least, _I_ consider it self-help! Yours truly was featured in a NY Times trend piece about “vibrator enthusiasts.” 
> 
> Oh and [the cone](https://i1.wp.com/bawdybookworms.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/The-Cone-Vibrator.jpg?resize=470%2C435&ssl=1) is real. One year, for my birthday, my friends chipped in and purchased it for me because I was so insanely curious. I did not like it. 
> 
> That weird Campari and soda order was cut from the WHMS script, so I stuck it back in. 
> 
> The next chapter will continue right where we left off and we’ll get to hear Ben’s saga and they'll be all vulnerable with each other. It's gonna be great. 
> 
> My [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/) and my [playlist for Ch 5+6](https://open.spotify.com/user/jd2dzvr8ji3gahg69cl282kxu/playlist/5whDvpAboFAMJxlxe9m2u7).


	6. ...pull down the mirrors and pull down the walls...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Rey finally get that drink, share their troubles, wander around Soho, and decide that they _can_ stand each other.
> 
> Excerpt:
> 
> “Because I can’t be friends with someone who just disappears like that.” She drops the phone back in her bag and takes a little step closer.
> 
> “I’ve been trying to disappear for the last six months and it hasn’t worked yet.”
> 
> “It’s weird,” she says, looking up at him. “At any other time in my life I would be asking you to take me up to your place right now.”
> 
> “You wouldn’t have to ask. At any other time,” he adds.
> 
> “I’m too sad to fuck someone. I didn’t know that was even possible.”
> 
> “You just described my early twenties.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up right where we left off. 
> 
> There's a little bit of angst in here because both characters are at a low point, but I tried to weave in some humor and flirting where I could! 
> 
> Oh, and there are no curveballs and weird settings to deviate from When Harry Met Sally in this one. It's very pure!

“Before Paige, I’d meet someone, we’d talk, it would be going well, and then they’d google me.” 

Ben and Rey sit side by side at a nearly empty bar around the corner. He has a glass of Malbec, Rey has whiskey, straight up. 

“And it would go one of two ways. Either they were interested  _ because _ of my...notoriety—”

“—infamy?”

“—and they’d want to fuck me out of hate or to act out some weird role play—“

“Wow. Did you—“

“—or god forbid they were actual fans—”

“Wait, you had  _ fans _ ?”

“—which was worse. It’s absurd to listen to someone glorify you when you hate yourself.”

Rey had heard little bits and pieces about Ben over the last couple years, sometimes from Rose or the occasional reminiscence from Lando. Never from Han, though. Asking him would’ve crossed some invisible boundary. 

Ben looks slightly different these days. He has facial hair now, which makes him look a little older, or like he’s trying to hide his face. And maybe he is, because there’s a scar running down the right side of his forehead and disappearing into the collar of his shirt. He hasn’t addressed it yet, so Rey tries not to let her eyes linger on it.

“Paige was different. She just looked past everything I did with the First Order. Maybe she compartmentalized. Or she honestly didn’t care. I think she  _ liked _ the Kylo Ren part of things...the persona or the fact that it upset other people and gave her an edge. But I know it made her family unhappy and that’s the only time it seemed to bother her.”

Rey knows a little about this side of the story, but she doesn’t interrupt. 

“It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t support me leaving the First Order. I mean, she did at first, when everything blew up. She was my rock. And then dust settled, and there wasn’t any more drama. Just this monotonous new reality where I was just a person who didn’t have any direction or purpose. She looked at me differently.”

“Why did you leave the First Order?” 

He looks down, like he’s deciding how much to say, before turning back to face her.

“I was at a college speaking event. I think it was Ithaca. Maybe SUNY Downstate. The crowd was young, really fired up. Lots of people protesting, controversy. Everything Snoke loves. Anyway, afterward this kid comes up to me—I never agree to do meet and greets, but he just finds me of his own volition."

She wonders how many times he’s told this version of the story. It doesn’t sound rehearsed. 

“And he’s quoting me and telling me how I opened his mind. That always makes me uncomfortable anyway, so I’m looking around, trying to make an escape and I notice this kid’s wearing this patch, some alt right symbol, which…why am I even versed in that? Why do I know that?”

Rey puts her elbow on the bar, resting her head in her hand, listening intently. 

“The fact that this kid, like a high school kid, took  _ my words _ , parroted then back at me and used them as a justification for some insanely hateful shit...” He looks up at the ceiling for a moment. “I was an angry kid. After the divorce. Whatever my parents wanted, I had to do the opposite. My whole identity was tied up in undoing their expectations of me. I fed off it.”

Rey thinks of Han and how much hurt he’s still burying, while saying nothing. Her throat feels tight. 

“I just looked at this teenager and saw the living, breathing result of what I’ve really been doing all these years. And it was a kid, like this version of myself...as if I went down a slightly different rabbit hole and got interested in stupid assholes like me instead of Nietzsche. None of these fucking kids were thinking for themselves anyway. I didn’t open anyone’s mind. I was in denial or something.”

“You were in denial for _eight_ _years_?” 

“It’s not like I was in the best headspace before that either.” He takes another sip of wine.  “Obviously I have many years of therapy to look forward to.”

Rey raises her glass a little bit, like the world’s tiniest cheers, and takes another drink.

“When I made the decision to leave the First Order, Snoke started systematically destroying whatever little credibility I had. I tried to step down quietly, but it didn’t matter. He owns the name ‘Kylo Ren.’ Someone’s still writing and tweeting with my handle. Not that I plan to use it again, I just wish I could destroy the whole identity and put an end to it. I spent a fortune in lawyers’ fees trying to fight them.

“Somewhere in in Westchester, a lawyer is putting an addition on his house thanks to me.” He sighs. “There’s some clause in my contract that prevents me from working at any other media company...from doing much of anything, really. I’m completely useless. And of course, this.” He gestures at the scar. “Not exactly camera-ready anymore.”

Rey finally allows herself to look at it directly. 

“How did it—?”

“A mysterious ‘random slashing’ outside my building. No robbery, they just wanted to cut my face. Does that sound ‘random’ to you?”

“So who—”

“The First Order blamed it on Antifa or some shit, but it was Snoke. He didn’t hold the knife, but he might as well have.”

“Jesus. Just for wanting out?”

“At first, I thought it was just a warning shot to keep me from leaking anything damaging. Although I have no clue what  _ could _ damage them at this point. No one seems to give a fuck what they say or do. Even if I did speak out against them, they could sue me into oblivion.” He runs his hand through his hair and lets his thumb move over the scar, as if to remind himself that it is, in fact, still there. “But the more I think about it, I have a feeling it was punishment, pure and simple. For disobedience.”

Rey swirls the last the whiskey around the bottom of the glass. She hasn’t had a reason to absorb someone else’s pain since the divorce.  It doesn’t feel  _good_ , of course. But it’s an odd sort of relief from wallowing in her own misery.

“I didn’t even get plastic surgery on it, yet. Between the deductible and the lawyers’ fees, I couldn’t justify it. Just part of my punishment.”

She decides not to ask whether his views on universal health care have changed.

“So...yeah, shockingly, Paige didn’t want to deal with a powerless, bored, financially burdened, facially scarred...meme.”

Rey has seen several of the Kylo Ren memes, but she doesn’t mention that, either. 

He seems  _ resigned _ . Like the barely-restrained, angry energy that surrounded him the last two times they met burned away and left a shell of a person.  Were he anyone else, she would probably hop off the stool and wrap him in a hug. But a hug’s not right. That much human contact would probably shatter him at this point. Or her, really. So, no hug.  

“Her loss.” 

He rolls his eyes, finishing the rest of his wine. She nudges him.

“Seriously. This version of you is better. When you’re not acting like an entitled prick, I can see what you really are.”

The look on Ben’s face is hard to parse, like he’s slightly offended and a little bit pleased. 

“And what’s that?”

She’s not ready to answer that yet, so she changes the subject.

“You should come up with a better story about the scar, though.”  Rey slides down from her stool, grabbing her Babeland shopping bag from the hook. “You could say that some obnoxious girl sliced your face in a rage after you slut-shamed her.”

“I did not slut-shame you—”

“Hey, do you want to walk? It’s very quintessential New York-in-the-fall right now.” 

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees, nearly forgetting his Babeland shopping bag under the barstool.   
  
  


* * *

 

They walk north, vaguely heading in the direction of Washington Square Park, due more to a lack of nearby green space options than nostalgia for the location where Ben dropped Rey off eight years ago. He’d burned with a strange mix of resentment and longing as she'd slung her duffel bags over her shoulder and marched away from the Falcon with a terse, “Thanks for the ride.” He’d been too angry and prideful to do anything other than shout back a sarcastic “You’re welcome!” And, of course, he’d regretted it twenty seconds later when he climbed back in the driver’s seat and looked to the right at the empty passenger seat. 

The park had felt slightly tainted ever since. 

“At least you don’t have to get divorced,” Rey says, wrapping a scarf around her neck. “I say that as a lawyer going through a divorce.”

“Was it different? Being married?”

“Different how?”

“Paige used to say that when her friends would get married, they’d practically never have sex again. The mystery fades, you feel too secure, everyone starts asking when you’re going to have kids. Then when you have kids, you’re up all night, exhausted. It just takes every sexual impulse out of you.” Rey raises her eyebrows. “We talked about getting engaged a few times, but she was pretty adamant about not going down that path. She also thinks weddings are tacky.” He pauses. “Actually I think she used the word ‘gauche.’ ”  

“She didn’t seem too happy with Rose’s bridesmaids’ dresses. I really dodged a bullet there.” 

They wait to cross 4th Street amid a pack of tourists. Rey takes out her phone and scrolls through some photo albums before selecting a picture and holding it up for him. Paige and a few other young women, all in flowing peach-colored dresses, flank a beaming Rose. Rey swipes to the next photo. This one shows Paige, Rose and Finn next to Rey, who’s wearing some kind of fitted black suit and dramatic red lipstick. She definitely got the better end of that deal.

The cognitive dissonance of seeing Paige and Rey in the same picture makes him slightly dizzy. It’s like looking at a shadow world where he would have been a trespasser. It’s not that far from the truth, at least when it came to Paige’s family.

“You weren’t at the wedding.” Rey says, when she clearly means to ask _why_ he wasn’t at the wedding. “I noticed.”

“You did?” 

The light changes and they hurry ahead of the tourists. 

“Yeah. I mean, I texted you, after Lando offered me the job. I even left voicemails like a senior citizen. I thought...maybe you’d be at the wedding with Paige and I could actually thank you.” 

“She didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to go.”

_ A distraction _ is the phrase she’d used to explain why he “didn’t need to go” to Rose’s engagement party…

To meet her parents when they came to visit…

To Rose’s wedding....

To see Rose’s newborn baby….

To the baby’s birthday party… 

“I guess you probably know this, but I met Rose a few times. It was...awkward. She clearly hated me. Hated my work. Hated that I was with her sister. Hated that Paige was pulling away from her.”

“‘Hate’ is a strong word. I think she found you...problematic.”

“It seemed easier to just stay away, at first. But then, at a certain point, so much time had passed and it just got too late to fix it.”  _ Fucking story of my life _ .

Eventually the relief he’d felt at “not needing to go” to these family events morphed into shame. Because a more sinister voice would whisper that it wasn’t  _ really _ about his views, or the First Order. It was just  _him_. His personality. Aloof. Difficult. Someone you don’t introduce to your family because you’re too embarrassed. 

They take one of the looping pathways around the park, leaves crunching beneath their boots. The sun starts to set. 

“They have a little girl,” Rey tells him, as she scrolls through another album on her phone and hands it to him for closer examination. “I like this one. It’s from last year.” 

He expects a standard baby picture ( _they all look the same, but you’re not supposed to say that _ ),  but it’s a candid photo of Rey and a girl of about two, both in profile, making faces at each other. It’s so genuine and sweet that he suddenly feels terrible for what he’d just said about the impact of kids on a relationship.

Ben had never really had any friends of his own with kids. On the rare occasions when he’d have to interact with a child, he’d felt incredibly awkward. But on some level—some deep place in his subconscious—he could imagine having the kind of family his own parents couldn’t quite manage. 

Maybe out of spite. But maybe not.  

He hands the phone back. 

“Amilyn never wanted kids. I mean, I guess that was part of the point of our relationship, we could have sex on the kitchen floor and not worry about a kid walking in. We could fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice. We could bring home other people on a random Wednesday night and not have to explain a thing.”

Ben does a double take. 

“One day I was babysitting her—Finn and Rose’s little girl, Alice—and I took her to the Bronx Zoo. And we’re on the train playing ‘I Spy.’ You, know, ‘I spy a window,’ ‘I spy a newspaper.’ And the train made a stop and people started crowding in and there was this man and this woman with two little kids. And the man had one of the kids on his shoulders. And Alice said, ‘I spy a family.’ And I started to cry.” Her voice is tight. She swallows. “Because the thing was...we never did fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice.” 

“And the kitchen floor?”

“It’s this very cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile. So, only like, half a dozen times. It’s really murder on your back.” 

He nods as if he understands, while pushing the image of Rey laying on her back on top of Mexican ceramic tile out of his head. 

“I guess…” she continues, “I probably cried for myself, you know? That I never knew such a basic thing. I waited my whole goddamn life for my parents to come back and give me that.”

Ben stops walking. She’d never said anything about her parents. 

“They left you?”

She turns around, shivering a little as the wind picks up.

“Yeah. I didn’t tell you that?” 

He shakes his head. 

“I thought I had.” They start walking again. “Well, I’m 29 and I’m finally starting to think they’re  _ not _ coming back with that pizza.” She laughs, but there’s a sharp edge to it. 

Ben balls his hands into tight fists, a familiar, sick anger rising.  _ They threw her away like garbage? _

“So, yeah. I don’t know about kids. Families are...complicated for me.”

“Yeah. I can understand that.”  _ Clearing breath _ . 

“I hope Sheldon has a bunch of bratty grandkids and Amilyn gets stuck babysitting all the time,” she says, hugging her arms to her chest and rubbing her shoulders to keep warm. 

“Let’s head back this way,” Ben says, steering them south again. He’s tempted to offer Rey his coat, but the anxiety over whether or not it’s too intimate a gesture keeps him from actually doing it. “My apartment’s not far from here.”

“Oh, am I walking  _ you _ home?” she asks, sounding playful in a way that she hasn’t all afternoon, She walks backwards for a few steps in order to face him. 

“If you insist.” 

“You kept your apartment?” she asks.

“Neither of us got the apartment. My family’s had a loft here for like 40 years. My grandfather bought it when it was some kind of warehouse. I’m staying there for now and gutting it so we can sell it to some wealthy asshole.”  _ And finish paying my legal bills.  _

“It’s an expensive neighborhood.”

“Yes, but everything that made it unique is gone. It’s almost worse than Brooklyn.”

“Um, yeah, thanks for telling me to avoid Brooklyn eight years ago, by the way. You really had your finger on the pulse of culture and nightlife for a young twenty-something.”

“I stand by the fact that Brooklyn is an overpriced, gentrified nightmare.” He pauses, taking a quick inventory of some of the self-righteous, condescending bullshit that came out of his mouth on that trip. “But I’d take back some of the other things I said to you.”

“I hope that doesn’t include what you  _ typed  _ to me,” Rey says without looking up.  

Ben feels his heart race for a second. 

“No, that’s canon.”

She’s either blushing or her face is flushed from the cold. It’s probably the latter. 

“When we first met, I really didn’t like you,” she says.  _ Okay, definitely the latter _ . 

“I didn’t like  _ you. _ ”

Rey stops in front of him and looks him in the eye. They’re close enough that she has to look up.  

“That’s a lie. You were just so uptight back then. You’re a  _ soft boi  _ now.” She gives him a gentle little jab in the ribs. It gives him a jolt in a way he’s positive she didn’t intend.  

“I hate that kind of remark, you know. It sounds like a compliment, but really it’s an insult.” He makes a mental note to look up  _ soft boi _ on Urban Dictionary later. 

“Okay, you’re still as hard as nails,” she concedes with a shrug.

“I just didn’t want to fuck you, so you had to write it off as a character flaw instead of dealing with the possibility that it might have something to do with  _ you _ .”

“You’ve committed to that narrative for eight years. I would love to know your secret so I can employ it in my next relationship.” 

They look at each other for a beat too long.

“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?” Ben blurts out, to his own surprise. He’s not even sure how he meant it. 

She responds before he can decide how to clarify. 

“How about right now?” Rey looks up at him expectantly. “Because it’s getting really cold and I’m starving.” 

They’ve already been talking for almost three hours. He hasn’t had a conversation this long… well, probably since the drive from Chicago. To keep going might be pushing his luck, but he’s not ready to go back to an empty loft.

“My favorite pizza place is on Houston. They have a coal oven, so we’ll both smell like pizza for days. Is that okay?”

“That’s really the dream, isn’t it?” Her eyes do seem to light up. She tilts her head, studying his face. “Hey, are we actually becoming friends now?”

“Well, I…”  _ Friends _ . He can’t decide if that was his intention. He just wants to keep talking to her.  _ Why is it so easy to talk to her?  _  “I think so. What do you mean by ‘friends’?”

“Right now I’m…not on the active roster,” she says holding up her Babeland bag. “You know?”

“Same here.”  He wonders if and when he’ll use his purchases. 

“So, the traditional definition of ‘friends,’ then.  No more... _ games _ …” 

He can’t tell if she ends that sentence as a statement or a question, but he finds himself nodding in agreement.  

“Huh. An actual normal, no-benefits friend,” she muses. “I kinda like this. I’ve never been friends with a meme before.”

She takes out her phone and taps on it a few times.   

His phone buzzes. The preview shows an eggplant emoji. 

“That’s my number. You’re not gonna ghost me again, are you?”

He shakes his head. His number has been in her phone for eight years?  _ Eight years _ . 

“Because I can’t be friends with someone who just disappears like that.” She drops the phone back in her bag and takes a little step closer.

“I’ve been trying to disappear for the last six months and it hasn’t worked yet.”

“It’s weird,” she says, looking up at him. “At any other time in my life I would be asking you to take me up to your place right now.”

“You wouldn’t have to ask. At any other time,” he adds.

“I’m too sad to fuck someone. I didn’t know that was even possible.”

“You just described my early twenties.”

It gets a laugh out of her.  _ An actual laugh. _ It feels like a victory.

“You may be the most attractive person I have  _ not _ wanted to sleep with in my entire life,” she says, starting to walk south again.  

A flicker of rejection passes across Ben’s face, but he thinks he covers it reasonably well as he catches up to her.

“That’s wonderful, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow my fic recs, you know that I talk about Before Sunrise a lot and that most of my favorite fics in this fandom are the ones that are just really long conversations. This is a pretty big turning point in WHMS, so I rewrote this several times to try and get it as right as I could. Feels are not really my strong suit when it comes to writing so I hope it all held together. 
> 
> The pizza place is Arturo's. It is on Houston and it is the greatest. And most of Ben's curmudgeonly opinions about New York come courtesy of my own born&raised-in-Manhattan partner. 
> 
> The chapter title is a line from Doing the Unstuck, a perfect song. 
> 
> What did Ben buy at Babeland? I am laughing just thinking about it. 
> 
> Your comments here and on [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/) bring me great joy. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading whatever this is. It's been so fun to write.


	7. Why Can't I Be You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know those montages where two people develop a relationship over the course of a pop song and a lot of little scenes cut together? This is that, in fic format. Ben and Rey actually start hanging out. Watching Netflix alone/together while on the phone is the new force bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost like a collection of little ficlets. I hope it provides that "montage feel." I suggest you read this with your favorite rom-com pop song in the background. My choices are "Ask" by The Smiths, or the title of this chapter, by my beloved The Cure. 
> 
> Except that this chapter is quite long, so queue up a few songs. Since it's mostly text messages, I have no idea how long it'll take to read. I tried to center Rey a lot more in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, there's a NSFW image embedded in here. It's a comic and it's small, but just a heads up.

Rey sits at her desk at The Resistance office, poking at a stress relief toy that Finn had bought her a few days ago. The slow pace of a post-election month means she has more time to let her mind wander. She writes briefs and post-mortems on the campaigns they worked on, analyzing what went wrong. _Terrific._ Her new favorite pastime. There’s no chaos right now. No urgent meetings downtown. No reason to stay late at the office.  

No reason to go home.

Literally. There is nothing in the apartment.

As if on cue, Poe rolls his chair over the concrete floor to Rey’s desk, knocking into her.

“Happy hour at Therapy? On me.”

He lounges back in chair, giving her a look that’s slightly seductive, while somehow also expressing pity. She could just be projecting the pity. That’s the response she elicits now.

Everyone tells her to go to therapy. As in, actual therapy and not a gay bar called Therapy, where she downs strong drinks and watches Poe flirt with aspiring actors.  Everyone is probably right. But she doesn’t want to spend an hour each week crying in front of a detached professional. A therapist would try to crack her open and figure out what Freudian shit made it all go wrong. She’s barely holding it together as it is. No, now is definitely not the time to dig at the roots. The slightest exhale could cause the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.

Finn and Rose had insisted she stay on their couch while Amilyn systematically removed all the physical artifacts of the years they’d spent together. Being a part of their little family had felt soothing at first. But after a few days, something shifted. Sensing their bond, watching them take care of Alice together, working as a team....even when they bickered, Rey felt a stinging resentment bubbling up inside her. And then she berated herself for feeling it.

Rey’s lawyer tells her it’s a blessing that she was able to keep the apartment, but maybe it’s actually a curse. If it was functional, comfortable, or holding something, Amilyn had taken it. Of course, she’d been the one to purchase nearly all the big-ticket items. And now it’s all erased...like the last four years never happened at all.

What makes it worse is that everyone wants to “help.” Han invites her to every conceivable sports event he can get tickets for. (Watching sports is a way for them to keep each other company without facing each other or actually making conversation.) Poe insists on hitting the bars together “like the old days,” even though they’ve only been friends for two years and never had any “old days.”  Finn and Rose ask her over to dinner on a nightly basis and don’t stop even after she says “no,” four nights in a row. They mean well. _They mean_ so _well._

But even when she does accept their invitations, she can’t bring herself to talk about it. She can’t be the grateful recipient of their kindness. _What they really want is some emotional catharsis_ , a voice in her head insists. They want her to break down completely so she can get better. So things can get “back to normal.”  Not that Rey blames them. She doesn’t like herself right now, either. But wallowing feels somehow right and she can’t seem to stop. It’s almost comforting. Like a gravity blanket.

“So?” Poe asks, forcing her attention back to the present.

“Is there anything more thankless than being your wingwoman at a gay bar?”

He runs his hand through his dark curls and considers it.

“Yes. Being anyone else’s wingwoman at a gay bar. You’re my lucky charm. Again, _I’m buying_.”

“I don’t know if it’s good for me to be drinking so much,” Rey says, packing up her laptop anyway. She checks the time on her phone, contemplating the distinction between day drinking and happy hour.

“This is exactly when you’re supposed to be drinking so much,” Poe assures her, rolling himself back to his desk to grab his keys. “Lando’s in St. Barth’s. It’s dead here and I know you don’t want to go home.”

“One drink. Han’s supposed to bring me some of his old bar stools tonight so I have a place to sit at the breakfast bar when I eat my Coco Puffs in the morning.” She slings her backpack over her shoulder. “She took all the chairs, Poe. I eat standing up at the counter.”

“Sitting isn’t good for you anyway. We should really ask Lando for standing desks.”

They walk to the elevator.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben walks down Bond St, gym bag slung over his shoulder, bracing himself against the chilly November wind when he hits the corner of Lafayette. He’s wearing the bright red Adidas tracksuit that Paige had passive-aggressively placed at the top of “to donate” box last year. It probably looks ridiculous but it feels good to protest in this small, spiteful way.

The Crunch down the block is his new home away from home, giving him something constructive to do that doesn’t involve the internet or the cavernous space in which he’s temporarily crashing.

Just two doors down from his building, Ben does a double take as he passes the latest addition to the block: a fucking GOOP pop up shop. He glares through the window at the dark store, now closed for the night, muttering a string of expletives as he searches for his keys. _This fucking city._

His building is practically the only part of the block untouched by pricey new real estate ventures. The common areas are still just as they were when Ben was a kid and Han used the place as a workshop. The Skywalker loft hasn’t been updated since his grandfather converted it into a semi-livable space with a kitchen and bathroom in the late 60s. The overall effect is a strange mashup of turn-of-the-century exposed brick walls and tacky mod flourishes. Han never bothered to update anything; he just left another layer of grime.

Which is why Ben promised Leia he’d gut the place and create a blank slate that could be sold more easily. He hadn’t gotten very far yet, having spent most of the last few weeks sorting through the endless piles of junk that had accumulated over the years. After the divorce, it had simply become the family’s storage facility.

A 5000 square foot junk drawer. _A thankless task for a useless person._

At some point, after he disposes of all the clutter, he’ll pry the hideous avocado green tile off the bathroom floor, rip out the kitchen cabinets, and take a sledgehammer to every single non-load-bearing wall. He can’t wait to tear it all down.

The rickety old elevator shudders to a halt, opening directly into the fifth floor loft. Flipping on the harsh lights that buzz from the high ceilings, he heads straight for the stereo. Like everything else in the place, it’s a cobbled together system, originally devised by his grandfather, modified ( _carelessly_ ) by Han, with some updating from Ben.

Music helps the place feel a little less like morbid museum. He puts on an old R.E.M. album, contemplating tonight’s dinner order as he walks back to the bathroom to start running the water in the ancient clawfoot tub. It had been rescued from the street at some point and rigged up with a shower head featuring the world’s weakest water pressure. He reminds himself to shower at the gym next time. Nothing in the loft works the way it should.

He misses his state-of-the-art walk-in shower. He misses Paige. He misses Paige in his state-of-the-art walk-in shower.

His phone abruptly comes to life in his hand, buzzing insistently.

_Paige??_

But it’s not. The image on the lock screen shows an extremely realistic dildo, which means that it’s Rey.

She’s in his contacts now. Since they’re officially friends. He reminds himself not to let her borrow his phone, unsupervised.

Except that he kind of likes it when she touches his things.

He waits a moment, not wanting to seem too eager.

_Eager for what, you moron?_

“Hello?”

“Uh… Wait, is this Ben?” she sounds surprised to hear his voice.

_Butt dial?_

“Yes?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I actually...this is weird. I thought I dialed Han. You’re next to each other in my contacts, I guess.”

Ben leaves the water running and  walks out into the main living area, feeling the need to pace. _Calling Han?_  

“He was supposed to drop off some stuff for me. Because I don’t have any furniture.” She says this really quickly, as if she hears his spiraling thoughts. “I have this breakfast bar and nowhere to sit and he has these bar stools that I’m going to reupholster—”

“Are you...you’re _friends_ with him?”

“Yes…?”

There’s a five second pause that feels like ten minutes. His heart is pounding.

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “Ben, we’re regular _friends_...normal friends. He’s like... a mentor to me.”

“A _mentor_? What is he teaching you? How to act like some tough asshole while leaping at any excuse to run away from your own family?”

“I don’t _have_ a family.”

But he doesn’t really hear her. He’s teetering on the precipice of an outburst and the words are flowing through his mouth, unchecked.

“So he’s like the father you never had? And _you’re_ the child he always wanted?” It comes out harsher than he intends.

“Hey!”

“He’ll probably disappoint you, too.”

There’s a long pause. He clenches and unclenches the hand that’s not holding the phone.

“Are you done berating the orphan now?”

He lets out the breath he’s holding. _Fuck_.

“I’m sorry. Rey, I’m really sorry.” He panics. “Don’t hang up. Please.”

_You fucking idiot._ Another outburst followed by desperation. She _should_ hang up.

There’s another long pause.

“I’m here,” she says tightly.

“We don’t really have a relationship anymore and I haven’t...dealt with that yet.”

“Well, neither has he, so you’re both stubborn idiots. We don’t need to talk about it.”

He hears her breathing start to normalize. His does, too.

“Okay.” He exhales, scrambling to remember why she was calling in the first place. “Did you say he was bringing you furniture?”

“Yeah. I kept the apartment, but Amilyn took everything that wasn’t bolted down. I’m starting to think Sheldon had an ulterior motive. Like, his wife left him and took all _his_ furniture, causing a domino effect around the entire Tri-state area.” Ben laughs softly, the adrenaline of the outburst slowly melting away. “I don’t have any chairs. I’m sitting on the floor, right now, against the blank living room wall, tossing playing cards into a bowl that used to be on our coffee table. Which is also gone. Nice of her to leave the bowl, though.”

Ben imagines the scene in his mind’s eye. Rey with her light brown hair tied up in a messy bun, leaning against a white wall, legs splayed out. She might be wearing leggings and a tank top. Something comfortable. _But also tight._ He imagines the echo of her voice in an empty apartment.  

_Empty apartment_...He looks around.

“You know, there’s a lot of furniture here at the loft. Most of it is, uh, Han’s. Ironically. If you’re okay with your place resembling a rec room from the early 80s, you’re welcome to any of it.” 

“Really?”

“I’m cleaning the place out anyway.”

“How did you know my design aesthetic is ‘early 80s rec room’?”

The left corner of his mouth turns up in a tiny smile.

“It was probably your appreciation for the custom detailing on the Falcon.”

She snorts. He pictures her laughing on the other end of the line, feeling a pleasant little thrill at bringing out that reaction. _Thank God she didn’t hang up_.

“Could I come over tomorrow and take a look at your...inventory?”

“What are you doing tonight?” The words rush out before he can tamp down on them.

“Um, waiting for Han.” _Right_. A pang of envy snakes up inside his chest. “And working on my handstand. I’m never going to get this much empty wall space for practicing these ever again.” The sound of their connection changes and there’s more of an echo, like she’s put the phone down. Then there’s a loud series of thumps and some muffled swearing. “I think I had too many drinks to get it right.”

“Drinks?” Ben stops pacing.

“Just happy hour with a friend.” The connection sound shifts again and her voice becomes clearer. “My friends try to distract me. No one wants me to come home after work and stare at the walls and feel betrayed and abandoned. Of course, I just do that _after_ the drinks.” She takes stuttering breaths. “God. That just got too real.”

“I get it.” He sinks into the couch in the makeshift living room. "How've you been sleeping?"

“Last night I was up at four in the morning watching Saved by the Bell in Spanish.” She affects a terrible Zack Morris impression. “‘Buenos dias, Señor Belding. Donde esta Kelly y Screech?’ I’m not well.”

Ben finds himself grinning, relaxing into their conversation. Normally, he hates talking on the phone and being forced to respond right away. Text is easier. Texts can be composed and edited. And re-edited. But somehow it feels good to talk to Rey..

“I went to bed at 7:30 last night,” he says. “I haven’t done that since the third grade.”

“That’s the good thing about depression. You get your rest.”

“What makes you think I’m depressed?”

“Seriously?” He can perfectly picture her dubious expression through the phone.

“Fine,” he concedes. “I mean, I’ve been depressed in the past. I know what that feels like. This is something else. Like a nervous energy. But I also have nothing to do, so I need to invent tasks to complete.”

“It’s probably good. Sticking to a schedule.” She pauses. “You actually sound pretty healthy.”

He considers the strangeness of _anyone_ saying those words to him.

“I know.” It’s half-statement, half question. And it’s probably not true. He’s just staving off the inevitable crash and burn; but for now, it’s better than sitting alone with his thoughts all day.  “I read an article with some tips on how to enjoy being alone.”

“ _You’re_ taking life advice from listicles?”

“My therapist says it’s ‘personal growth.’”

“Okay, so give me a tip.”

“Never eat standing up. You’re supposed to make a nice meal for yourself and sit at a table.”

“Great. As soon as I get a table or a chair, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

There’s an insistent buzzing sound in the background of the connection.

“Oh! I think Han’s here. Text me about tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” A little disappointed sigh escapes him.

“‘Night!” And with that she’s gone. The loft is lifeless again.

Ben suddenly hears running water and remembers that he was about to shower. Placing his hand under the weak flow, he can tell that the water cycled from cold to almost-hot and is now rounding the bend from lukewarm back to cold.

He feels a spike of loneliness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**TUESDAY**

 

The next day at work is just as quiet, but the hours seem to pass slightly faster. Han had stayed at Rey’s for a bit to watch Monday Night Football, but the wall and floor proved to be no match for his recliner. He’d pestered her about getting some actual seating and she’d nearly told him about Ben.  

She’s not sure why it almost slipped out. _An innate desire to fix their broken relationship?_ Or maybe it’s just that Ben is the first person she’s felt genuinely comfortable with since the divorce and she’s itching to tell somebody else so that he doesn’t seem like an imaginary friend.

Obviously, at some point, Han will come over and see his old stuff. But she doesn’t need to figure that out just yet.

 

**Ben:** Does 6 pm work for you?  


 

God, he really doesn’t have anything to do.

 

 

**Rey:** Sure, that way we can have you in bed by 7:30 again.  
  
**Ben:** Or is that too early?  
  
I don’t think I ever left the office before 8.  
  
Whatever time works for you.  
  
**Rey:** it’s so slow here rn.  
  
i could leave now and no one would care.  


 

She notices that the ellipsis icon appears and disappears multiple times before each text he sends.

 

**Ben:** I could order something for dinner.  
  
Unless you have plans.  
  


 

The ellipsis is practically flashing on her screen.

 

**Ben:** No pressure.  
  
**Rey:** Sure.   
  
**Rey:** 👍🏼  
  
**Ben:** I’m not trying to distract you.  
  
You can go back to your place and stare at the walls at any time.  
  


 

She snickers softly.

Poe immediately swivels around in his chair, but she doesn’t acknowledge him.

**Ben:** What’s your preference? Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Ethiopian…  
  
**Rey:** omg are you going to do your insane ordering thing with me via text  
  
what if i don’t want a sauce on the side?  
  
what if i want it mixed in????  
  
**Ben:** I would probably order you a separate dish  
  
**Rey:** lol  


“Are you on Tinder?”

**Rey:** high maintenance  
  
**Ben:**?  
  
You’re calling me high maintenance?  
  
**Rey:** You’re the worst kind  
  
you're high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance  
  
**Ben:** I don't see that.  
  
**Rey:** Srsly?  


“Who are you texting?” He starts to wheel his chair over, but Rey stops it with her foot.

**Rey:** “I’ll start with the house salad but don’t put the regular dressing on it, I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil instead, but ‘on the side’ and then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the sauce ‘on the side."  
  
“On the side” is like a very big thing with you.  
  
**Ben:** I want it the way I want it.  


 

“Fetlife?”

“Shut up, Poe.”

**Rey:** I bet you do.  
  
H.M.  
  
As I said.  
  
I date you to order food without asking for anything on the side.   
  
*date  
  
Wtf autocorrect *dare  
  
**Ben:** Date accepted.  
  
*dare  


\--------

Just after 6:00, Rey steps off a slightly suspect elevator directly into a enormous space with well worn hardwood floors...and a chaotic mess of boxes and bins from a range of eras. It’s hard to believe that Ben, of all people, can stand to spend so much time in such a haphazard setting. 

“Ben?” she calls, gingerly stepping over a stack of papers. “I bought four different bottles of fancy water. I wanted to cover my bases.” 

“Turn right and keep walking. I’m in the kitchen.”

Rey follows his instructions, walking past some makeshift room dividers and a menagerie of intriguing curiosities and odds and ends. Someone in the family must have been a tinkerer. This doesn’t exactly look like stuff that would interest Han.

When she walks past the last divider, the space opens up into something resembling a large open-plan apartment, with a kitchen on the right and a living area on the left. It’s much calmer back here, with soft lamp lighting and comfy looking couches. A New Order song plays through an archaic-looking sound system. 

“I should have warned you about the front,” Ben says, from the far corner of the kitchen, where he’s grabbing plates.

“You have no idea how luxurious it is for me to eat a meal while sitting on an actual chair, with a back and everything.” Rey sets down the Whole Paycheck bag on the counter, taking out the bottles and lining them up.  “Did you just push everything to the front so you could hide back here?”

“Something like that.” He examines the bottles of water and looks up at her. “Really?”

“I  _know_ you have a preference.”

He obviously does. 

“So what’s going to happen to all the stuff?” Rey asks as Ben grabs two glasses.

“Well, you’re going to take some of the furniture and I’ll donate the rest. And then a giant truck is coming next week to haul most of it away.” His voice is emotionless. 

“All of it? You’re just getting rid of it?” She turns around to survey the landscape of  _ things _ . “Whoa, a Bowflex! Don’t throw that out, it’s one of the best pieces of sex furniture known to man.” She rushes over and sits down on the angled bench. “Do you have any carabiners?”

“I thought you needed living room furniture.”

“I do. I’m saying  _ you  _ should keep it. You’ll thank me later.”

It’s so easy to make him uncomfortable. It’s almost unfair. 

“The place needs to be ‘broom clean’ before we can list it. Leia took the things she wanted to keep, Han hasn’t stepped foot in here in years, and I doubt my grandfather is going to return from the grave to claim a bunch of old wires and tools.”

“Ooh, old wires?” Rey exclaims, heading back towards the front half of the loft. “I  _ love _ that kind of stuff.” She kneels down, rummaging through some of the boxes. “He must have been a hobbyist or something.”

“Oh, he was something,” Ben mutters, following her voice. 

The buzzer rings and Ben walks to the elevator to let the food delivery guy in. 

“What’d you end up ordering?” Rey asks, voice a bit muffled, as she sorts through a new pile of potential treasures.

“Peruvian chicken.”

“That’s cheating.” She sits up for a second. “They always put that delicious green sauce in a little cup on the side no matter what.”

“Oh. Do they?” he asks innocently. “I hadn’t noticed.” She narrows her eyes at him. 

“Seriously, can I take some of this stuff?” she asks, returning to the box in front of her. “Oh my god. I need this.” She holds up a long, rectangular exterior sign from a telephone booth. There’s an ancient lighting element inside that looks salvageable. Ben watches with curiosity as she pries off the casing to examine the wiring.  “I can totally put new bulbs in here and maybe tighten up some the connections with...” 

Rey looks up. He’s staring. 

“What?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious. “Do I have something on my face?”

He shakes his head, still giving her that focused gaze.

“So, can I rescue this?” She’s already clutching the telephone sign like someone’s about to rip it away. 

“Anything in this apartment,” he says with a little shrug. “All yours.”

Rey rises to her feet giddily.    


“This will be perfect in the bathroom.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**WEDNESDAY**

**Today** 10:15 AM  
**Ben:** I don’t miss her.   
  
I really don't.  
  
**Rey:** Not even a little?  
  
**Ben:** I miss the IDEA of her.   
  
**Rey:** Maybe I only miss the idea of Amilyn.  
  
**Rey:** No, I miss the regular sex, too.  
  
**Today** 3:47 PM  
**Rey:** Oooh. Yes. #goals  
  
**Ben:** What?  
  
Did I miss something?  
  
**Rey:** Shit. Sorry wrong thread.  
  
**Ben:** What are your goals?  
  
**Rey:** Oh. Ha.  
  
It’s NSFW  
  
**Ben:** I have no W anymore.  
  
**Rey:** Good point.  
  
**Ben:** Aren’t YOU at work?  
  
**Rey:** I’m on my phone!  
  
(that’s ok right?)  
  
😬  
  
You’re sure you want to see?  
  
**Ben:**...  
  
Are you afraid to show me?  
  
**Rey:** If you insist...  
  
**Today** 3:50 PM  
**Rey:** Ben?  
  
Are you dead?  
  
Did I murder you?  
  
**Ben:** What the fuck is she thinking, sneaking up behind someone like that  
  
In front of a hot stove?  
  
That is so dangerous.  
  
**Rey:** Hang on  
  
THAT is your reaction to what you just saw?  
  
**Ben:** It's distracting.  
  


* * *

**THURSDAY**

Rey is curled up on her only piece of soft furniture, the air mattress Finn and Rose lent her. It’s the nicer kind, with the little inflatable headboard, but it’s still impossible to actually get comfortable on it. 

She browses Netflix idly, having exhausted her go-to comfort food TV binge options. 

“Will this be the night I finally give up and watch _This is Us_?” she says out loud (to no one). 

Stretching out on her stomach, she reaches for the copy of  _ 11/22/63  _ that she found in the stairwell last week, skimming the first few pages. A weird thought pops into her brain. She shrugs (to no one), impulsively flipping to the end and reading the last passages of the book.

“Motherfucker! Why?” she yells (to no one), a few minutes later.

Rey grabs her phone. 

The now-familiar baritone voice answers after one ring.

“Hel—”

“Reading the last page of a book first is a really fucking stupid thing to do. You just spoiled a perfectly good Stephen King novel for me.” 

“Ahh. Exploring the dark side?”

“And it’s a really long book, so you owe me, like, twenty-seven hours of entertainment now.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“How do you I suggest I start paying that off?”

“Hmm…” Rey rolls onto her side, looking for that one random comfortable Aerobed sweet spot and not finding it. “Movie?”

He scoffs. 

“If you want me to come all the way out to Astoria, that should count as extra hour.”

“No. You stay there. I stay here. We’ll just turn on a movie at the same time and watch it together.” 

“You want to talk on the phone during the movie?”

“Who’s gonna shush us? It doesn’t have to be constant conversation. We just stay on the line and talk when we feel like it.” 

“Okay,” he agrees, although she detects a hint of uncertainty. “What are we watching?”

“ _ Requiem for a Dream _ ,” she answers immediately. 

“ _ What _ ?”

The palpable shock in his voice prompts the first legitimate  _ laugh _ Rey has had in a long time. 

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” She chuckles again softly. “I guess I like fucking with you.”

“You do.” 

“Hmm. Okay, I got it.  _ High Fidelity _ ?”

“Really? You’re sure that’s not going to be…”

“What? Triggering? Too on-the-nose?”

“Yeah.” 

“See, I think it’ll be like exposure therapy. Like an allergy shot. And then in like a year, we’ll be ready to watch the first ten minutes of  _ Up _ .”

“There’s not enough exposure therapy in the world for that.”

“It’s easier with someone else. Otherwise I’m just a sad, lonely person, sitting on an Aerobed, watching a romantic comedy by myself.”

“You’re right, that’s definitely not what’s going on here.” 

 

* * *

 

**SATURDAY**

**Ben:** I woke up this morning actually feeling...fine about it.  
  
I’m over her.  
  
I really am over her.  
  
**Rey:** You keep saying that.  
  
**Ben:** That was all she had to give.   
  
And the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we did the right thing by ending it.   
  
**Rey:** God. Really?  
  


* * *

**SUNDAY**

After two burly men (neither one wearing a Mister Zero t-shirt) deliver Han’s furniture to Rey’s apartment, Ben helps her arrange the living room. She’d been thinking more along the lines of Poe, Finn and a van, but Ben insisted that he had “guys.” The whole process was over in 20 minutes and she hadn’t even needed to explain the  _ how _ or  _ why _ or... _ what  _ of Ben to her friends. 

Rey has never taken much of an interest in decorating or furniture placement. But Ben looks distressed and twitchy when she suggests just pushing the sofa and chairs against the walls and calling it a day. 

“Can I just move some—”

“Just do whatever you feel compelled to do.” Rey flops down on one of the chairs, watching with interest as he walks around the space, examining various angles and sightlines to the TV (her first post-Amilyn purchase). 

“You’re supposed to pull the pieces away from the wall,” he says sliding one half of the sofa a few feet from the window. “It makes it feel more...intimate. Or something.”

“Just let me know if you need my help,” she offers, while sinking further down into the cozy armchair. 

“You should really get an area rug for the middle here.” Ben pulls the other side of the sofa to make it parallel with the wall. “Helps define the space.”

She raises her eyebrows and looks up from the comfortable little nest she’s made in the chair.

“What? I’ve watched some shows, okay? I have a lot of time on my hands.” He walks over to her chair in his heavy, thudding way. “I think this should be opposite the couch.”

“Do you need me to m—”

He’s suddenly standing right over the front of the chair, caging her in with his arms as he pushes it backward into his desired position.  _ He  _ has _ been spending a lot of time at the gym _ . 

“That’s better,” he says, taking one beat longer than necessary to stand upright again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we should go to IKEA. You’re going to need pillows and a coffee table. Lamps. Probably a bed.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“I value this friendship too much to subject it to the horror of a trip to IKEA.”

  
  


* * *

**THURSDAY**

“Do you still sleep on the same side of the bed?” Rey asks when the credits start to roll just after midnight. 

Ben shuts his laptop, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Without the movie in the background, Rey’s voice feels closer, almost like they’re sharing the same space.  

“I did for awhile, but now I’m pretty much using the whole bed.” 

“God, that’s great. I feel weird when just my leg wanders over. And this isn’t even our actual bed. I’m sleeping on the edge of an air mattress out of deference to the sides.” There’s a beat of silence and a shaky breath. “I miss her.”

As Ben considers how to respond, he hears a muffled sob and some unmistakable sniffles and tight, gasping inhales. 

This feels very private. But she hasn’t hung up. 

He’s no stranger to private crying jags, something neither of his parents ever understood or acknowledged. 

“Why am I the one who gets left? What’s the matter with me?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He hears a few more choked sobs, followed by a sniffle, and then some gasping breaths, slowly steadying. 

“What side?” he asks.

“Wh-what?” 

“Which side of the bed is yours?”

“Left. Driver’s seat.” Sniffle.  “What about you? I mean, when you’re not by yourself?”

“Right side.” It’s a lie and he’s not sure why he’s saying it. 

“Why the right side?”

He glances around for an answer. 

“Closer to the door.” 

“So if there’s a fire or something, you’ll be the first one out of there?” She lets out an indignant little huff. “You wouldn’t even try to yank me out of bed? You’d just run for the exit?”

“Well since you just invited yourself  _ into _ the bed, I assume you can find your way out in case of emergency.”

“That’s very comforting. Remind me never to fall asleep at your place.”

“Noted.”

“I’m gonna hang up now.”

* * *

**FRIDAY**

**Ben:** I just found a pair of Paige’s underwear in my laundry.   
  
**Rey:** Throw them out immediately.  
  
We need to rid ourselves of that stuff.  
  
If you let it linger in your home, it will slowly poison you.  
  
Like the One Ring.  
  
**Ben:** It was mingling with my whites and light colors.  
  
**Rey:** A little spy!  
Wait, you have enough whites and light colors for an entire load of laundry?  
  
**Ben:** Am I supposed to send them back to her? They look expensive.  
**Rey:** No!   
  
What you should do is cut them up and then send her a photo of them shredded.  
  
😎 **Ben:** Fuck that's harsh.  
  
I’m glad I never broke up with you.  
  
**Rey:** #truth   
Oh shit. I have a better idea.  
  
You should get another woman to put them on and take a picture of HER and send THAT photo to Paige. 💅  
  
**Ben:** 1\. Holy fucking shit, if I’m ever in a feud with someone, I want you on my side.  
  
**Rey:** Ride or die.  
**Ben:** 2\. That would also require me finding a woman willing to have her picture taken while wearing another girl’s underwear   
  
**Rey:** What brand?  
**Ben:** La Perla   
  
**Rey:** Be right over.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you noticed the little references to some of my favorite fics? There's more coming up. 
> 
> Therapy is real and around the corner from one of my old apartments. [Bond St](http://forgotten-ny.com/2011/06/u-s-bond-unbreakable-street-in-noho/) is also real and a frequent location of weird hipster photoshoots. The GOOP pop up shop is/was real and we were shook when it moved in. I'm sorry that I'm bad at inventing things! 
> 
> There's a convo in here that is just a real text from my life. I got called a "Sally," unprompted, and I had to include it, even though it's ridiculous and probably OOC. [This](https://forcedfemfantasies.tumblr.com/post/148093413805/bluebunlewd-really-feelin-some-femdom-lately) is the most original image source I could find (NSFW obvs). 
> 
> Shout out to Saved by the Bell. I wrote SBTB fan fic when I was a kid, before I even knew what fic WAS. 
> 
> The next chapter will continue in this format, but we'll get a little more of Ben's POV and we'll finally visit Finn and Rose. FINALLY.


	8. Girlshapedlovedrug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey continues to make Ben slightly uncomfortable with her, um, brash attitude about sex...even though we know he's not _that_ innocent. Ben keeps himself busy, while Rey is still in denial over...a lot of things. Is it time for these two to try actual dating with other people?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a section with some formatting that might not show up on an e-reader. I was trying to replicate the split screen format that happens in WHMS occasionally with a split-screen-esque POV scene. So, you'll see that one character's POV is all bold, even if the right- and left- justification doesn't come through. 
> 
> Second, I hate to break it to you, but Rey was making a joke at the end of the last chapter. Frankly, La Perla underwear is like 90 bucks a pop, so she would have been within her rights to go for it. But she's AT WORK and she is A PROFESSIONAL WHO DOES NOT READ OR WRITE FAN FIC AT HER DESK. 
> 
> Ahem. 
> 
> So, I'm sorry there is no continuation of that implied scene, but this chapter has some of my favorite bits so far. This brings us up through the scene in WHMS where Sally is about to go on a date. So, yeah...I wonder who will have more success rejoining the dating world?
> 
>  **Duane Reade is a drugstore chain in NYC.** I bolded that because the first scene won't make sense without that info. 
> 
> I tried to do a kind of split POV thing at one point to really mimic the film. I hope it's legible!
> 
> There's a little reference to a fic I've rec'ed a couple times and I thought it was a good substitute for Sally taking tap dancing lessons. And a very general salute to Canada (which is meant as a shout out to CanadianReylo!). I'm glad everyone caught Kyril last time. I was about as subtle as a bright red Adidas track suit.
> 
> Have you noticed that Ben is, like me, a millennial who thinks of himself as part of Gen X for some reason?
> 
> Get out part 2 of your rom-com montage playlist. Mine includes the chapter title, which is a song by Gomez that is SO on the nose for a rom-com montage, I have to believe it was used several times in that capacity, possibly on Grey's Anatomy. [My playlist for these chapters.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/204fqX9iXxWSR0dm2HS5IE)

“I’m definitely coming down with something.” 

“You came down with several shots of tequila and then drunk dialed me at 1:45,” Ben says, following her down the cold medication aisle. 

“How do you not have any NyQuil in your apartment? How do you  _ live _ ? What happens when you feel too sad to stay awake, but you’re not tired yet and you just need something to take the edge off and have weird hallucination dreams for twelve hours?”

“Klonopin.”

“The NyQuil of the 1 percent? I stand with the people! OTC all the way.” She’s being very loud. “Damn the man, save the Duane Reade!”

“I’m sure there's some in the apartment, but it’s probably twenty years old and you’re not taking cold medication when you’re drunk.”

Rey stops in her tracks. 

“Oh my God.” 

“What? What is it?”

She grabs a box from the aisle end cap and clutches it to her chest. 

“Ben, will you be my Dust Daddy?”

He flushes for a second, before noticing the logo on the box. It’s some kind of As Seen on TV vacuum cleaner attachment and she’s definitely about to make some kind of scene. 

“Ooh, it gets into the tiniest cracks and crevices. Sure does.” She holds out the box at arm’s length so they can both read it. “Dozens of flexible tubes with ‘powerful suction.’ How’s a girl gonna compete with that?”

“I thought I was the Dust Daddy.”

“Okay, okay! Calm down, Ben.  _ You _ can be the Dust Daddy.” She bites her lip. “Should we get it?” 

“We’re trying to clean  _ out _ the loft,” he says, grabbing the box and returning it to the shelf. 

“It’s  _ for _ cleaning.”

She gasps. 

“I have the best idea.” 

“Does it involve a giant bottle of Gatorade and some Excedrin?”

“Pervertables.”

“No.”

“You go in a drugstore and pick out items that are normal on their own, but when you buy them together, it looks like you’re preparing for a low budget kink scene.  Like….clothespins and a jump rope.” 

Ben sighs.

“We’re not leaving until you do this?”

A wide smile creeps across her face. 

“Until  _ we _ do this. Three things. Two minutes?” she suggests, pulling up the timer on her phone. 

“Only if you also buy an enormous bottle of water.”

“Oh, we need baskets!” she cries, dashing to the entrance and retrieving two shopping baskets that she struggles to separate. “I hope you have a strategy.” She hands him a basket and hits start on the timer. “Aaaaand...go!” she yells, sprinting down the aisle towards the kitchen supplies. 

\--

As the timer starts to sound, Rey sprints to the register, where Ben has been standing with his basket for thirty seconds. 

“Okay,” she says breathlessly, “I got...spatula—” she whacks him on the chest with it, “—phallic toothbrush case, with ridges—duh, and plastic wrap, extra clingy. How about you?”

“Hairbrush. Latex gloves. Baby oil.” There's no hint of embarrassment in his voice.

Rey gets very quiet, stares at him, looks down at the items in the basket, and then back at him.

“ _Ben_.  Ben, I feel _God_ in this Duane Reade tonight. You are. A total. Fucking. Perv.” She’s yelling. “It’s _confirmed_!”  Without warning, she launches herself at him, wrapping him in a giant bear hug. Or a petite-medium bear hug, considering her size. “We are purchasing all of your items to commemorate this moment,” she declares, grabbing his basket and setting it on top of the counter at the register. “God, a paddle-style hairbrush? Are you fucking kidding? I can’t wait to make you a Fetlife profile. All that black you wear...This makes so much sense now.”

“Here,” he says, handing her a box of NyQuil. “Don’t take this tonight. It doesn’t mix with tequila. I’ll let you have it when you’re sober.”

She smiles as she adds the box to the small pile of pervertables in front of the bored-looking cashier, who sighs as he scans each item. When he gets to the baby oil and then the NyQuil, something seems to snap into place. He looks up. 

“Big plans tonight?”

Rey turns back to Ben. 

“Oh shit, we forgot the Dust Daddy.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben jogs. 

Ben lifts weights. 

Ben takes a barre class. It really fucking hurts the next day. 

Ben reads some of the books that are strewn around the loft. They must have belonged to his grandfather. They’re...intense.

Ben watches cooking shows and practices preparing actual meals for the first time in his life. He makes things precisely as he wants them. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t think I could live on a block that didn’t have a taco place that stays open until 3 a.m.”  Rey stares at the profile of yet another Lauren who likes to travel. She swipes left before stuffing half of the al pastor taco in her mouth. 

“There’s probably some asshole real estate developer trying to turn this into another Chase branch,” Ben says, from across the table, not looking up from Rey’s phone. 

“Okay, Mr. Free-Market-I-Love-Corporations-Deregulate-and-Privatize.” She sits up taller, craning her neck to see what he’s doing. There’s an awful lot of rapid fire swiping motions. “How’s it going over there?”

“Did you try the chorizo?” he pushes the platter closer to her. She picks up the other half of the chorizo taco, narrowing her eyes. 

“Any matches yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You look a little trigger happy with that index finger.”

“It’s called ‘quality control.’” 

“And it’s still set to men  _ and  _ women?”

“Yes.”

“Uh huh.”

Rey returns her attention to Ben’s phone and swipes left on Ashley the yoga instructor.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben discovers _The Great British Bake Off_ and decides he needs to make English muffins from scratch. The result is a series of tough, misshapen little discs. He tosses the first batch  _ and  _ the cooling rack into the garbage. 

Ben tries again the next day. The second batch still doesn’t look right, but Rey says they taste pretty good. She’ll eat anything.

Ben reads that Hux struck some deal for a show on CNN. Apparently he wasn’t dumb enough to sign the same kind of contract Ben had. 

Ben takes the barre class again. It really fucking hurts the next day. Again. The teacher gives him a lot of attention. He thinks about asking her out, but she looks a little bit like Rey, and that seems awkward. Still, it’s something to think about.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Rey:** Jesus Christ I just found the ultimate insult in the apartment.  
  
**Ben:** What’s that?  
  
**Rey:** She took the time to go through every single one of the books and take the ones that belong to her.  
  
Like, painstakingly.   
  
Did you and Paige do that?   
  
**Ben:** Paige had a Kindle.  
  
**Rey:** So all her books are gone, right?  
Except for one little pile.   
  
And I’m positive she left them on purpose.  
  
Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life?  
  
Daring Greatly? You know...the shit the yoga teacher reads at the end of class when you just want to fall asleep.   
  
I mean FUCK HER.  
  
Leaving them is like saying, “I finally figured out my life, it doesn’t include you, but good luck in your future endeavors.”   
  
**Ben:** A bit passive aggressive.  
  
Are you going to read them?  
  
**Rey:** Not you.  
Don’t.   
  
**Ben:** I'm not.  
  
**Rey:** Don’t tell me I need self help or therapy help or any kind of help.  
  
**Ben:** I didn’t say that.   
  
**Rey:** I’m so tired of people “helping.”  
  
I can’t take it from you too.  
  
Just please treat me with mild disdain.   
  
You should barely put up with me.  
  
I’m begging you.  
  
**Ben:** You're still the only person I've ever actually helped.  
  
Your job.  
  
Your furniture.  
  
A number of meals.  
  
**Rey:** That's it tho.  
  
**Ben:** Reaching things on high shelves.  
  
**Rey:** I'll allow it.  
  
Thank you for not helping me in any other way.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey gives a little warning knock before letting herself into Finn and Rose’s Prospect Heights apartment. 

“Are you guys decent?” she shouts, throwing open the door and shrugging off her puffy winter jacket.

Alice comes running toward her, clamping herself to Rey’s leg. 

“Rey, do you see my keys by the front door?” Rose yells, apparently from the bedroom. 

She rotates around as best she can with her tiny human leg brace, scanning the immediate area. “Don’t see ‘em!” 

Rey Frankenstein-walks to the living room. 

“Great workout, Alice, thank you.”

“She ate already,” Finn says, rushing in from the kitchen and pausing to give Rey a quick hug. “Can you call my phone?”

“Bedtime still midnight, right?” Rey grabs her cell and looks down at Alice, whispering, “I brought the wine coolers again.”

They all listen for Finn’s phone. His pants pocket buzzes insistently. 

“Quite a night you two are having.” Rey sits down on the couch, Alice still clamped to her shin. 

“Thank you for doing this at the last minute.” Finn throws a tie around his neck. “You’re an angel.” 

“I need three minutes!” Rose shouts from the bedroom. 

“Yeah, I had to clear my busy schedule of sitting quietly and working out my existential crisis.”

“You must have something going on because we haven’t seen you in over a week.” He takes a seat next to her, just as her phone buzzes with an incoming text.

Ben Swolo  
  
**Ben:** I assume you’re the one gifting me Chuck Tingle books on Amazon.  
  


“I finally got some temporary furniture so I can do nothing more comfortably.”

Finn eyes her phone suspiciously and looks back up at her.

“Poe says you’ve been on your phone all day at work.”

“How about some _Daniel Tiger_?” Rey says to Alice, bopping her gently on the nose. When she looks up, Finn is still waiting for some kind of response. “I have other friends, you know. And why is Poe gossiping about me?”

“Oh, so you  _ do  _ have a new friend?”

“No!” Alice screams, apparently not in the mood for the gentle adventures of an animated tiger.

“Yes. I have a friend. Why is that so hard to believe?”

“I didn’t say it was hard to believe. I just want to know why you’re being so secretive about it.”

“NOOOO!” Alice screams again, at nothing in particular. 

“Just pretend it’s not happening. We’re trying a new thing where we just ignore her when she screams for attention.”

“Great.” 

Ben Swolo  
  
**Ben:** Taken by the Gay Unicorn Biker is a real triumph.  
  
Of course, Gay T-Rex Law Firm: Executive Boner was also a revelation.  
  
Can I call you? I need to ask you something.  
  


Finn’s eyes snap to the incoming call on the lock screen as Rey snatches up her phone a second too late. 

“Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?” Finn covers his daughter’s ears for a moment. “Are you fucking around with Kylo Ren?” he whispers sharply.

“No!” she insists.

“NOOOO!” Alice screams.

“He’s just a friend. We just...we tell each other about our depressing lives and...I don’t know…hang out sometimes.”

“After what he did to Paige?”

“What  _ he _ did to Paige? She walked out like five minutes after he decided to  _ not _ be an asshole anymore.”

“Asshole,” Alice says. “ASSHOLE!”

“Damn it,” Rey says under her breath.

“Were you planning to tell Rose? What about Han?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Or am I going have to tell Rose?” 

That stings. 

“Tell me what?” Rose steps into the room, heels, under her arm, putting on an earring.

“Uh, Rey is going to watch  _ Caillou _ with Alice tonight.” Finn occupies himself with his tie. 

“Wow, you’re really taking one for the team,” Rose says, slipping her shoes on and giving Rey a kiss on the crown of her head.

“You know me.” She shoots daggers at Finn. “I love Canada.” 

“Caillou!” Alice screams. 

Rose squats down to give Alice squeeze.

“Wanna say goodbye to mommy and daddy?” 

“NOOOO!! Asshole, asshole, asshole!” Rose looks up at Finn. 

“Rey did it.”

“We’ll be back around 11,” Rose grabs Finn’s hand and pulls him off the couch and toward the door. “I’ll text if it’ll be any later.”

“No problem.”

“Don’t have any  _ friends _ over, okay?” Finn shouts as they grab their coats and slip into the hallway.

“Okay,  _ Dad _ !”

“Caillou!” Alice screams.

“Please God no.” But there’s no reasoning with her now. Rey takes out her phone again. 

Ben Swolo  
  
**Today** 7:05 PM  
**Rey:** Hey  
  
Wanna watch something called “Caillou”?  
  
I think it’s a Canadian art film.  
  
You'll love it.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Finnnnn  
  
**Today** 7:19 PM  
**Finn:** I told Rose.  
  
**Rey:** Excuse me?  
  
It’s been TEN MINUTES.  
  
**Finn:** I’m not going to keep secrets from my wife. I’m sorry.  
  
We don't keep things from each other.   
  
Sorry bad choice of words.  
  
(Rey: Expressionless Face Emoji )  
  
**Finn:** We just want to know why  
  
  
  
  
**Today** 7:27 PM  
**Rey:** He listens to me.   
  
Doesn't judge me.  
  
Doesn't tell me to go to therapy.  
  
**Finn:** We’re NOT JUDGING YOU REY.  
  
  
**Today** 9:53 PM  
**Rey:** It's like   
  
I’m in a hole.  
  
I’m in a hole and you’re trying to get me out.   
  
You’re sending down ropes and rescue workers and shouting at me to climb up  
  
But I’m not ready to be up there  
  
I need to be in the hole right now.  
  
It’s ok  
  
He’s in the hole too.   
  
We’re just...keeping each other company in the hole.   
  
  
  
  
**Today** 9:58 PM  
**Finn:** Okay. I hear you.  
  
I don't really get it and this convo is not over. But you’re still my bestie.   
  
**Today** 10:03 PM  
Are you SURE you’re not fucking him?  
  
You said HOLE like twenty times there.  
  
Just sayin  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben refreshes Twitter compulsively. He reads the KyloRen tweets. And the replies. Does it feel good to see KyloRen get pwned? 

Ben gets confronted in public sometimes. He hasn’t figured out how to handle it, so he usually just walks away. You never know when someone is secretly filming. Sometimes he worries that it will happen when he’s not by himself. Of course, there are really only two people he spends time with.  

Ben hasn’t scheduled the truck to come and haul away all the junk yet. Every time Rey comes over, she finds another item she wants to keep. Maybe next week he’ll pull the trigger. 

Ben takes a third barre class. He doesn’t need to take a fourth. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
“Ok, it’s your pick tonight,” Ben says into the phone, flopping onto his bed and grabbing the remote.   


  
**“Oh, thank god. I can’t watch another _Crow_ movie. Hang on a sec.” Rey sets her phone and  laptop down on her bedspread and slips her sweatpants off, tossing them in the hamper. “And she hits the three.” **  


**Peeling back the covers, she slips inside the sheets and adjusts the computer on her lap, picking up the phone again.**

 

  
“What was that?”

 

  
**“You would not _believe_ how good I am at shooting my pants into the hamper from clear across the room. The WNBA’s gonna call any day now.”**  


Ben freezes for a moment. He’s good at picturing what’s going on on her end of the line. He’s been to her apartment plenty of times over the last few weeks, even helping her put together a bed frame when her air mattress sprung a leak. But this is new information.

“Do you always take your pants off before we start a movie?”

  
**Rey rolls her eyes.**

**“My bed is a pants-free environment. I have a single person’s sleeping uniform. It’s a big t-shirt and underwear.” Rey logs into her Netflix account. “And socks if it’s cold. Who am I trying to impress here?”**

“I see.” 

And now he can’t stop his mind from helpfully creating an image of her, without pants, sitting cross legged on her bed—

**“Ooh,” says Rey, still scanning her Netflix queue. “You’re probably gonna hate this, but I haven’t seen _Ten Things I Hate About You_ in years and I swear it is quietly progressive and as good as _Clueless_.”**

**Rey pauses. The line is too quiet.**

**“What? Veto?”**

“Is it Amilyn’s t-shirt?” 

**“What?”**

“That you’re wearing right now.”

**_Really?_ **

**“No!” She looks down. “It’s _my_...Alice in Chains shirt.”**

“Big fan, huh?”

**“Yes, actually.”**

“Not really your era, though. Name one song besides ‘Down in a Hole.’”

**“‘Heaven Inside You.’”**

“It’s ‘Heaven  _ Beside  _ You. Name one more.” 

Silence. 

**_Goddammit_. **

**“I’ll have you know that I adopted this shirt several years ago, I am its rightful owner,” she declares. “And it’s extremely comfortable.”**

“Okay.” He waits for Roku to load the Netflix app.

**She lets out a little huff, leaning back against her pillows.**

**“No veto? You’ll watch it with me?”**

“Pulling it up now.”

**“What do you care if it’s her shirt?”**

“ _You_ told me to throw out everything that belonged to Paige. And _you’re_ still holding on to Holdo’s shirts and crying over romantic comedies? It’s hypocritical.”

**Rey’s heart races. _That’s not true. It’s a goddamn comfortable shirt._**

**“Can we just watch the movie?”**

“All right.” 

** His voice sounds clipped. They haven't really had an argument in 2018. **

****

**“You know,” she begins, trying to shift the awkward energy, “next time you want to paint a picture in your mind, you don’t need to interrogate me and play ‘gotcha.’**

 ** ******

 **"You can just say 'What are you wearing?'”**

********

****

****

He smirks, a little relieved at the dissipating tension, but also annoyed by her brushing past it.

****

“You’ll just lie and say you’re naked.”

****

****

**“It’s like you know me or something.”**

****

****

 

* * *

 

 

“I have a theory that hieroglyphics are really just an ancient comic strip about a character named Sphinxy.” 

****

“How have you lived in the city for eight years and never been to the Met?”

They’ve been wandering through the museum for almost two hours and the sunset is starting to stream through the glass windows of the Sackler Wing. “Wandering” is a generous term. It’s more accurate to say that Ben has been coaxing and sometimes literally dragging Rey from gallery to gallery. The Temple of Dendur is the last stop. 

****

“Let’s see...I’m not interested in looted artifacts, institutionalized colonialism, or celebrating history of sexism going back thousands of years.” 

****

“Is there anything that’s not ‘problematic’ for you?”

****

“No. Frustrating isn’t it?”

****

“Very.”

****

“Oh, but I wore a costume,” she says, unzipping her hoodie to reveal a Killmonger Was Right t-shirt. 

****

“You’re lucky I like you.” 

****

“I know. But do you like  _ like _ me?” 

****

“I’ll be honest, it’s not trending that way.”

****

“What?”

****

“This is one of my favorite places in the city. It hasn’t changed in...I don’t know, forty years? So, just, stop ruining it for ten minutes?”

****

She lets out a little cough “White male privilege” cough cough. 

****

Ben ignores it. Rey always sees these things in black and white; it’s one of her less endearing traits. He can only bear a certain amount of guilt in one lifetime and the fact that a world-class museum has ancient Egyptian artifacts isn’t something he’ll apologize for. 

****

The water in the reflecting pool is calm, like glass. Every so often, there’s a little ripple that distorts the reflection of the window. He lets himself stare at it and lose focus. This place is so comforting and familiar... 

****

“When I was little,” he says, more to himself than to Rey, “I used to watch this VHS tape—” 

****

“VHS? I’m too young to remember these old timey references, sir.”

****

“Respect your elders and maybe you’ll learn something.”

****

“Oh shit, am I gonna get the hairbrush?”

****

“We’ll see.”

****

He tries to study Rey’s facial expression, but she turns her head to look at the water. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a joke and what isn’t. 

****

“I derailed you. Sorry.” 

****

“Are you this rude to everyone or is it only me?” 

****

She smiles at the reflecting pool. 

****

“Just you.” It’s possible. He hasn’t really seen her interact with other people. Which is weird. “You had a ‘tape’…?” 

****

She turns to face him again. 

****

“Never mind. Just some stupid memory.” 

****

“No, I want to know.” 

****

It seems incredibly dumb now that he has her full attention, but she always gets what she wants, so he has to continue the story. 

****

“You had a video…?”

****

“It was the Sesame Street characters at the Met. And Big Bird gets trapped in here with this magical Egyptian prince.”

****

“I think I’ve heard this one. Were they forced to share a bed?”

****

“The prince was stuck here because his heart was too heavy,” he continues. “Every night, a demon would come and put his heart on a scale to see if it was light enough for him to join his family in the sky.”

****

“A demon puts his heart on a scale? Sesame Street was _dark_ back in your day.”

****

“Now that I’m saying it out loud, it does sound kind of intense for a four-year-old. Good songs though.”

****

“Wait, so what happens?”

****

“I think he either learns about the power of love or solves a riddle, and his heart becomes lighter than a feather. And then he becomes a star and disappears into the sky with his mother and father.”

****

“And  _ that’s _ why you like coming here? That’s insane.”

****

He shrugs. 

****

“It must have seeped into my subconscious.”

****

“Is it streaming? Because  _ this  _ is what we should be watching. Why have you been holding out on me?”

****

“I haven’t seen it in years. It’s probably out of print.” 

****

“We’re looking for the tape in the loft right after this. I bet it’s in one of those milk crates with your Nintendo games.”

****

“Oh, I...I can’t tonight.” 

****

“What, do you have a date or something?”

****

“Well. Yes.”  She flinches, almost imperceptibly. He thinks he sees it, at least.

****

“Really?”

****

“I was going to tell you but...I don’t know. I felt strange about it.” 

****

“Why?”  _ Yes,  _ why _? _

****

“I don’t know, we’ve been so—”

****

“Hey, it’s fine. I think it’s great you have a date.”

****

“You do?” He prays that his face conveys relief rather than disappointment.

****

“Sure. It’s the best way to get over someone.” He searches her face for more clues, but she’s being cryptic again.  “Is that what you’re wearing?”

****

“Yeah. Well. I don’t know. Why?”

****

“It’s...a lot of black…” _Black is easier._ Black blends in. “…for a first date. I think you should wear more gray or navy or even—God forbid— white. You look really good wearing other colors. Neutral colors. Nothing crazy.”

****

“I do?” Why is she noticing him in neutral colors? 

****

She nods. “Yeah. You do.” 

****

“You know, you should get out there, too.” 

****

She shrinks back immediately.

****

“Oh no. No, I’m not ready.”

****

“Rey. It’s time. You just said—”

****

“I wouldn’t be good for  _ anyone _ right now. I’m barely even touching  _ myself _ .”

****

“Maybe you need to get another person involved.”

****

She raises her eyebrows.

****

“Maybe.”

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you all know about [pervertables](http://www.daviddennett.com/01_Site/fetish_bdsm_WhereToFindSupplies.shtml)? The dollar store is a particularly great place to shop for them. Drunk!Rey and SecretKinkster!Ben are kind of my jam. [Dust Daddy](https://www.buydustdaddy.com/) is a thing that, um, caught my eye at CVS the other day?
> 
> The [taco place](https://www.yelp.com/biz/los-portales-astoria-2) on Rey's block is real and the late night food is probably the thing I miss the most about Astoria. 
> 
> Daring Greatly and Get Out of Your Mind are both actual good books. My favorite self-help book is [Radical Acceptance](https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Acceptance-Embracing-Heart-Buddha/dp/0553380990). Rey probably needs it, actually. 
> 
> Prospect Heights is in Brooklyn, near Grand Army Plaza. Rey is really doing Rose and Finn a solid because it's a trek from Brooklyn to Queens. That is almost an LDR. 
> 
> [Chuck Tingle](https://www.chucktingle.com/) is the greatest and if you don't know of him, I'm sure those texts made no sense. For some reason it just feels canon to me that Rey would randomly rickroll Ben with insanely meta gay erotica.
> 
> If anyone [genuinely likes Caillou](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-is-how-much-people-hate-caillou_us_58d05f98e4b0be71dcf766a9), I apologize. I really dragged him in this chapter. Canada, I'm sorry, but he's kind of your worst export. 
> 
> The tv special Ben is talking about is called [ Don't Eat the Pictures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Eat_the_Pictures) and it's actually awesome. It just really does sound dark AF. When I started thinking about the plot, it occurred to me just how Ben Solo-ish it actually is (a somewhat elitist, [lonely prince](http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Prince_Sahu) with a heavy heart who has to find his way back to his family?) and I ran with it. So if you have Sesame Street age kids, try to track it down. The songs really are so good. 
> 
> [This](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-2-000-year-old-egyptian-temple-ended-manhattan) is the Temple of Dendur and it is part of the Sackler Wing (not a Girls reference). And there have been some interesting protests there. 
> 
> Speaking of... I stuck a [Killmonger](http://afropunk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/KillMonger-Museum-gif1.gif) reference there because I'm still waiting for some Killmonger/Kylo Ren crossover slash. Where IS it? Also, I design museums and Killmonger is RIGHT about them. [My fave scene in Black Panther](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/black-panther-museum-heist-restitution-1233278). 
> 
> To the WHMS fans: I'm sorry there's no funny voices and pecan pie. It's really hard to have Rey do these Billy Crystal improv bits, but I might try to weave in some paprikash later. And I'll give you more smut instead. Next week. 
> 
> Did anyone catch my fic reference this time?


	9. Hot Hot Hot !!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben try to date other people...and then figure out how to tell each other about it. Everyone else seems very suspicious about the "just friends" pretense. 
> 
> Meanwhile, our two idiots get closer and closer to overstepping that line. And Rey may not be as calm, cool, and collected as we thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is another Cure song (not the Arrow/Buster Poindexter song!). It's a shout to the commenter who leaves Cure lyrics (hi!!) but also a reference to all the THREES in this chapter. 
> 
> Three scenes of Rey and Ben actually interacting with other people.  
> One phone call split into three parts (I hope this is clear - they're marked with this divider ----|---- )  
> Three text conversations  
> etc 
> 
> Hot Hot Hot !!! features verses about three lightning strikes and a lot of lyrics and beats in threes. It's also a reference to the temperature in Rey's apartment (#NYCproblems) So I thought it was appropriate.
> 
> We end the chapter at Katz Deli. So there's that. (See the end note -- there's a [one-shot that will pick up exactly where this chapter leaves off](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239074).

“It was the most uncomfortable night of my life.” Rey lies on her back, fiddling with a screw on the underside of the adjustable drafting table.

“The first date back is always the toughest.” Ben drags the first of a dozen of giant, black contractor bags to the elevator door of the loft. For the first time in years—ever, really—he can see all four walls of the space at one time. It has potential.

“You only had one date. How do you know it won’t get worse?” She grunts as the screw loosens. “Ugh, finally. See, now it actually adjusts.” She slides herself out from underneath the table she’s trying to salvage.

“How much worse does it get than finding out she’s not just a barre instructor, she’s also an aspiring model/actress/singer/Youtuber?”  He’d spent the better part of an hour trying to select the right non-black clothing, on Rey’s suggestion, but in the end he’d somehow circled back to black. Fewer variables to fuck up.

“Well, who doesn’t have a side hustle?”

“She almost made it onto the last two seasons of _The Bachelor_.”

“I dunno, she sounds kind of hot, actually. I’d hit it.” Rey sits up, brushing the dirt from the floor off her back.

“She said hashtag blessed three times. Unironically.”

Ben had this feeling as soon as he met her at the bar. Maybe it was seeing her in something other than lululemon. Maybe it was her choice of location—an oyster bar “partially owned by Zach Braff.” Maybe it was the way she mentioned, not once, but twice that Taye Diggs frequents her classes _and_ follows her on Twitter.

“You should give her my number. Hashtags don’t bother me.”

“I found myself using smaller words.”

An unmistakable look of disappointment passes over Rey’s face. The same kind of look had been a staple of his adolescent years.

“That’s awful. You assume an aspiring model/actress/whatever can’t understand you because your words are too enormous for her little brain to comprehend? Fuck you for that.”

“I could tell.”  The truth is, their conversation hadn’t gone far enough for him to tackle the minefield of his (lack of) career, or the scar, or politics. On a second date, there would be no way around it, so what was the point?

“That’s a dream date compared to my horror.” She gets up and turns her attention to the surface of the drafting table.

“What happened?” He lugs another bag over to the elevator.

“Graphic designer, beard-and-glasses, lives in Red Hook, your basic hipster nightmare. I meet him at Burp Castle because apparently men need to prove that they enjoy weird fancy beer now, or it’s not a real date. And you know they hate me in there because I’m too loud.”

“I like that place. It’s quiet.”

“You would.” She runs a cloth over the surface of the drafting table. “Anyway, it turns out his real passion is hosting trivia nights—”

“Oh no.”

“—and it just so happens that he’s hosting trivia that very night at a bar around the corner.”

“Fuck.”

“Before I could think of an excuse, I find myself walking over there with him. I almost texted you for a fake rescue call, but I didn’t want to disturb your...barre instructor thing. Anyway, we get to the bar and there are like only five people there. Two tables.”

“You had to sit there and listen to him read trivia questions to five other people?”

“He had a friend there who came by herself, so I sat down at her table, you know, trying to be friendly, or whatever.  And we’re making small talk and I gradually get the sense that she’s there because she likes him. Like, more than friends, secret crush, ‘Why don’t you love me back?’ kinda thing. She was all dressed up, too. Perfect makeup. Meanwhile, I look like...I mean, you saw, I was wearing a hoodie.”

“You didn’t change?”

“No!”

“After you told _me_ to—”

“It was a last minute thing!  So then I’m looking around at the people at the other table and there’s a woman wearing a Mount Holyoke sweatshirt, and it reminds me of Amilyn and all of a sudden my heart’s beating like crazy, my mind’s racing, I’m sweating and I can’t breathe.”

“Amilyn went to Mount Holyoke?”

“No, she went to Smith but they’re both Seven Sisters schools. Anyway, I was such a mess I had to get up and leave the bar. I was dry heaving on the sidewalk outside.”

Ben drops another contractor bag and walks over to the the drafting table.

“It takes a long time. It might be months before we’re actually able to enjoy going out with new people.”

“Yeah,” Rey agrees, with a bit of a sigh, half-heartedly examining the table for any remaining dirty areas.

“And maybe even longer before either of us be able to sleep with someone new.”

“Oh, I got laid.” She rubs the cloth over one stubborn grimy spot.

“You slept with that guy?” He feels _stabbed_.

“No! Gross. With his friend.”

“The woman?”

“Yeah, we went back to her place.” Rey steps back from the table, admiring her work. “I think this table is looking fantastic. We can list it tomorrow.”

Ben stares at her, still processing, always a beat behind.

“Once we get all these bags out, maybe we can demo those non-load-bearing walls and open it up even more.”  She walks over to the contractor bags, lugging another one over to the elevator.

“I thought you said you weren’t ready. You said that _two_ days ago.”

With a final heave, she drops the bag and looks at him, as if she’s trying to evaluate something.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Ben leans on the drafting table, trying (and probably failing) to project an air of casual detachment.

“You want to talk about our sex lives? I mean, now that we have them...or _will_ have them? Soon.” She nods encouragingly, but it’s patronizing.

He takes a moment to consider it. Who else would he confide in? He makes a mental note to think about expanding his circle of acquaintances, if not “friends,” in this post-Paige era.

“I’m fine with it, if you are. There’s no reason not to be.”

“Cool.” She walks over to an antique stool that’s sitting near the table, fidgeting with it before sitting down. “I actually didn’t think I was ready. But I guess when you said you had a date I just…” She looks at the ceiling. “I felt kind of...humbled. I mean, you just asked a girl out? In person? That’s insane. No one does that anymore.” Technically, the barre instructor asked him, but he lets her continue. “I felt jealous.” _What_ . “Jealous of you, I mean.” _Oh._  “And kind of weirded out that you didn’t mention it to me earlier. Like you were hiding something. Because we’ve been so open, you know?”

“Well, obviously the universe righted itself. I mean, I went home alone and you did some kind of insane friend swap on a first date. That has to be some kind of record.”

“Eh,” Rey says with a shrug. “I think she was mostly pissed at beard-and-glasses. Men are terrible. It’s easier than you’d think to steal women away from them.”

“That’s very comforting.”

 

\-----------

 

Finnnnn  
  
**Today** 4:19 PM  
**Rey:** Okay, what about next Tuesday?  
  
**Finn:** Rose says 8:30 - 9:30.   
  
Sitter dependent.  
  
oh and she’s not happy about it   
  
She told me to tell you that   
  
(Rey: Unamused Face Emoji )  
  
**Rey:** Meet halfway in Manhattan?  
  
**Finn:** Rose says “walking distance only”  
  
**Rey:** OMG  
  
Should I just text her rn?   
  
**Finn:** I wouldn’t  
  
Your best bet is me as your buffer.   
  
And I’m not looking forward to this either so…  
  
**Rey:** FINE  
  
That place where they use an ice pick to make those giant ice cubes for the fancy drinks 8:30 next tuesday  
  


 

\-----|-----

 

_“I'll tell you a riddle. You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter. How can it not matter to you where that train will take you?”_

“I can’t believe there was a time when you thought this movie was deep.” Rey throws the down comforter off her legs, cursing the the building management for setting the thermostat so unreasonably high in December.

“I didn’t say that. When did I say that?”

“On the drive. You said it was a meditation on how there’s no objective reality and we’re all in prisons of our own making.” Rey balances carefully on the mattress as she stands up and turns the ceiling fan to high.

“I never would have said that,” Ben insists.

“Okay, then I’m lying in order to win an argument that’s been lying dormant for the past eight years.”

She flops back down on the bed, willing the fan to do more than push the hot air around.

“It’s just so cerebral. These dreams are like unfinished video game levels.”

“Oh my god, that’s _exactly_ what I said. This is like mansplaining on an eight year delay.”

“You can’t wake up from within a dream unless you die? What kind of logic is that? It’s like  Christopher Nolan doesn’t know what a dream is.”

“Are you messing with me right now? This is _very_ unusual for you. I assumed you were incapable of deception.”

“I don’t remember an opinion you held eight years ago.”

“You’re sassy tonight.” She can hear him roll his eyes through the phone. There’s something in his voice tonight that sounds a little less benign. She sits up a bit. “Did you...get some? Is that why you’re in a weird mood?”  

“What?”

“Did you hit it last night?”  

“No.”

“Why not?”

A melodramatic sigh comes across the line.

“She has an air collection. She collects air in mason jars to commemorate important historic events. They’re all labeled. They mostly commemorate her friends’ weddings.”

“God you’re picky. What does she do?”

“She’s one of those tour guides on the double decker buses.”

“Whoa, with the headset, all chipper? Talking at a bunch of tourists wearing ponchos?”

“Yes.”

“Oh so she’s a New Yorker? You have that in common.”

“She’s from Minnesota. Moved here last year. Wants to be an actress. Why do they all want to be actresses?”

“They let people from Minnesota give the tours?”

“The worst part is that every time I see one of those fucking buses, she might be on it. Eight million people in this city and she’s out there driving around, potentially stalking me at any moment.”

“Nothing you’ve mentioned should disqualify her from a trip to pound town.”

“I’m not interested in that.”

“Bullshit. Everyone is interested in pound town. Even you.”  

 

\-----------

 

“I don’t understand this relationship,” Poe says, already out of breath, only four minutes into the into the moderately paced jog. 

“What do you mean?”

They’ve been in Boston for three days of client meetings. Rey had managed to wake up at the crack of dawn to snag the only two treadmills in the crappy hotel gym of the Hilton.

“You enjoy spending time with him?”

“Yes.” She increases her pace a notch, noticing some athleisure-clad-businessman types circling like vultures behind the treadmills.

“You find him attractive?”

“Yes.” She grabs the remote and turns the TV to Bravo, hoping to scare them off.

“And you’re not fucking him?”

“Nope. Oooh _Real Housewives of Atlanta_.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m really rooting for Kenya this season. I know you’re a Porsha stan, but—”

“You’re afraid to let yourself be happy.”

Rey hits the stop button, making the treadmill shudder to a halt.

“Why can’t you give me credit for this? This is a huge step for me, you know? Having a positive relationship with a single, age appropriate person that doesn’t involve sex? I’ve never been able to do this...just be myself around someone without letting the ‘with benefits’ part of ‘friends with benefits’ fuck everything up. I feel like I’m growing.”

“Are you finished yet?” an athleisure-businessman-vulture asks aggressively.

“I jog for a full hour and I was here first, okay?”

“You weren’t.”

“I was too and stop looking at my ass!”  He probably wasn’t, but hopefully that will scare him off. “Where was I?”

“You were growing,” says Poe, still chugging along.

“Right. Well, it’s very freeing. I can say anything to him because I don’t have to worry about the sex part.” She starts up the treadmill again.

“You’re saying you can say things to him that you can’t say to me?”

“No, it’s just...different. We have this yin and yang thing. Like, you and me? We’re very similar,” she gestures between them, “which is why we’re good wing...people.”

“The best.”

“Whereas, Ben would be a terrible wingman. He’s kind of hot mess, in general. But we just talk for hours and I can be totally honest with him about the divorce. And he can talk to me about dating other women.”

“And you tell him about fucking other people?”

“Yes. That’s the point. I can say these things to him and it doesn’t impact the relationship.”

“But don’t you want to fuck him?”

“Well, I mean...normally I would climb him like a tree and then wait until he falls asleep before sneaking out of his apartment at 3 am and we’d never speak again.  But this is better. I can just be myself. And I don’t have to make up an excuse for why I need to leave, or what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it. He just accepts it.”

“So he’s a masochist.”

“He’s just wants to be friends, too. I told you, he’s dating other women.”

"Uh huh. And you still haven't mentioned any of this to Han."

"No, and don't say anything."

Poe laughs to himself.

“Yeah, there’s no way this situation could ever blow up in your face.”

 

\----|----

 

_“Well dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize how things are actually strange.”_

“That’s probably the first accurate statement in this movie,” Rey says, apparently stifling a yawn. "What a stacked cast, though. Wanna play fuck, marry, kill?"

“Do you still do the lucid dreaming thing?”

“So you _do_ remember this conversation.”

He doesn’t recall the nuances of what he said about _Inception_ , but he remembers his stupid, volatile desperation to win any and all arguments.

_“Let me ask you a question, you, you never really remember the beginning of a dream do you? You always wind up right in the middle of what's going on.”_

He turns down the volume on the TV.

“You were bragging about fucking people in your dreams. That stuck in my mind for some reason, I can’t imagine why.”

“Glad to have made an impression,” she says with a hint of sarcasm. “It still happens sometimes, yeah.”

“With who?” He tries to keep his tone neutral.

“In the dreams? Oh, I dunno. Co-workers, neighbors, my ex, TV characters. Friends.”

“Friends?” he asks too quickly.

“Yeah, Joey, Chandler...you wouldn’t believe the stuff Monica is into.”

 _Kidding, or…? Because the Monica bit checks out_.

He remains silent, deciding on the right response, when she bursts out laughing.

“Oh my god. You’re so pure.” She laughs again. “Of course you show up.”

“I do?” So _casual_ , he’s surprised his voice doesn’t crack.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re a big part of my waking life, so why wouldn’t you be present on the other side? Don’t I show up in yours?”

“I don’t usually remember mine.”  Or, more accurately, his cocktail of brain-numbing meds gives him such insane dreams that it’s impossible to think of them including something as natural and genuine as sex.  “So I show up in your dream and…” _Very casual._

“Wow, you are really terrible at feigning disinterest. I’ll go ahead and assume that you want to know if we’ve had sex in my subconscious.”

“I have a right to know if I’m being used.” The dream version of Ben is more than happy to be used, but that’s not the point.

“Well, the answer is no. I’ve tried, but even my subconscious is cockblocking me lately.”

“You’ve tried?”

“Yeah, I think I grabbed your thigh once. You’re surprisingly uncooperative. I think my cerebral cortex is trying to tell me something.”

More silence.

“Like?” he prompts.

“Oh...probably that it’s a bad idea to engage in short-term physical gratification and mess up a  lasting and meaningful relationship. Self-sabotaging something something. Freud. Crippling fear of being hurt again. Blah blah.”

“Freud was a coke head.”

“I’m going through a real dry spell in there.” She lets out a dramatic sigh. “Actually—you’re not going to believe this, but—this one time? You held me instead.”

_Held?_

“You hate that.”

“I know, I feel betrayed by my own brain.”

“And I thought I was the little spoon.”

“You know what’s more fucked up than you being big spoon?

He thinks _“what?”_ so loud, he’s sure she can hear it.

“One time I killed you. I felt this crazy, intense need to do it. I can’t remember why. I mean, there’s never really a _why_ in a dream. But I had a gun and I shot you. In the gut.”  

Ben sucks in his stomach involuntarily, wondering whether there’s a bit of symbolism he’s missing. Of all the people who might actually want to shoot him in the gut...

“I’m starting to understand why I don’t want to sleep with you in these dreams.”

 

\------------

 

Leia  
  
**Today** 8:05 PM  
**Ben:** Just ask me to come over like a normal person instead of pretending that you need I.T. support.  
  
I’m not going all the way to the Upper West Side to turn the router on and off again.  
  
**Leia:** Well I have more names for you, but I suppose I can just give them your number.  
  
**Ben:** NO.  
  
I don’t need names.   
  
**Leia:** So you’re dating?  
  
**Ben:** Yes  
  
It's fine.   
  
Don't interfere.   
  
  
**Today** 8:11 PM  
**Leia:** Well?  
  
**Ben:** WHAT?  
  
**Leia:** I want details.  
  
**Ben:** No.  
  
**Leia:** How many dates? Just one or…  
  
**Ben:** Three dates. Three different people.   
  
None worth committing to memory.   
  
  
**Leia:** So you really do need more names.   
  
**Ben:** I really don’t.   
  
**Leia:** What about your friend, Rey?   
  
**Ben:** You want to give out her number, too?   
  
**Leia:** That’s not what I mean and you know it.   
  
**Ben:** We’re friends. Just friends.   
  
**Leia:** But you spend so much time with her.   
  
You talk about her more than anyone you’ve actually dated.   
  
There's a picture of you on her Instagram. Did you know that?  
  
**Ben:** No. And don't look at her Instagram.  
  
She’s kind of a mess right now.   
  
Getting over a divorce, trying to put her life back together.   
  
And we’re too different to be a couple.   
  
**Leia:** Well Lando loves her. She’ll probably be running that company someday.   
  
Did I tell you I saw him at Planned Parenthood fundraiser last week?  
  
**Ben:** No.   
  
**Leia:** I want to meet her.   
  
**Ben:** What?   
  
Why?   
  
**Leia:** The four of us for brunch next Sunday.   
  
The Wren?  
  
**Ben:** 1\. I told you, no more brunches.  
  
2\. What do you mean ‘the four of us’? Because I hope it’s not what I’m thinking it is.   
  
**Leia:** A divorced couple and two ‘friends.’   
  
The world’s most platonic brunch.  
  
**Ben:** I haven’t spoken to him in eight years.   
  
And you think we’re just going to sit down for brunch, like everything’s fine?   
  
It's NOT FINE.  
  
**Leia:** You’re in therapy, Ben.  
  
I thought you’d be ready to deal with this.  
  
**Ben:** THAT IS NOT HOW THERAPY WORKS   
  
**Leia:** And with Rey, there’s a buffer.  
  
**Ben:** If you think I’m dragging Rey into this BULLSHIT...   
  
**Leia:** He’s your FATHER, Ben.   
  
You can’t ignore each other forever.  
  


 

\------------

 

It’s 6:17 am and the “chimes” alarm has never felt less soothing. Rey doesn’t even know what became of Poe and Han last night, except that there was some kind of drinking game at Maz’s bar and both of them lost.

It was the first time she’d seen Han in weeks. He keeps offering her furniture, which means that she’s had to cross the line from a sin of omission into outright lying. Rey has always had a talent for walking that particular tightrope; it’s a survival mechanism. But the longer this evasion goes on, the bigger the inevitable explosion will be.

Rey only had a couple drinks at the bar, but it was just enough to fuel a sloppy make out session with some moderately attractive rando in the alley next door. Luckily nothing more.

She grabs the phone and hits snooze for the second time, sleepily calculating how many more nine minute sleep increments she can get away with. But there’s a voicemail notification from a 212 number, which means it’s either a work emergency or a divorce emergency.

A work emergency would be preferable. And less expensive.

She taps the notification. No transcription available. With a sleepy groan, she hits play.

“ _‘Tell me I’m a nasty human manslut,’ I beg._ ”

Rey has never woken up faster.

She scrambles to hit pause, nearly knocking the phone out of her right hand. It’s a _man’s_ voice and it is definitely not a paralegal. She hits play again.

“ _Oliver shakes his head in mock disappointment. ‘What are we going to do with you? Such a nasty little human twink, you need a real dinosaur to show you how to fuck.’_ ”

Her eyes widen, all traces of drowsiness gone.

“What the _hell_?”

The voice is deep and authoritative, reading Chuck Tingle passages like they’re Neruda poems.

 _It’s Ben’s voice._ No mistaking it. Something in her belly tenses in an embarrassingly pleasurable way. The voice gets to her. It always has, but there’s something about the way he’s reading these lines that’s incredibly obscene. And not just because of the triceratops.

She hits pause again and checks the screen. The voicemail goes on for nearly _three minutes_. He has left her a voicemail with several minutes of pure, unadulterated, ridiculous dinosaur erotica.

For about 1.6 seconds, Rey debates whether what she’s about to do is wrong. She decides that it is very wrong and that’s not going to stop her. She reaches for the earbuds on her nightstand and inches down under the covers, where it’s still dark enough to imagine...anything. Only she’s not picturing a triceratops. She hits play, knowing she is _never_ going to delete this message. 

 

\----------

 

Finn and Rose round the corner onto Vanderbilt just after 8:30 on Tuesday. Rose is in what might generously be termed, _a mood_. Meeting Kylo Ren for a third time wasn’t something she wanted to waste a babysitter on.

She’s uncharacteristically quiet the whole way over, which speaks volumes about how this is going to go. Rose doesn’t do anything halfway.

Finn grabs her hand as they get closer to Weather Up, and she accepts it, but she’s grimacing.

“Thirty minutes. Did you set up the fake babysitter emergency call?”

“All set,” he assures her. “But we might not need it.”

“Oh that’s great. So you’ve already decided you’re on board with this?”

“No. I’m just trying to give Rey the benefit of the doubt.”

Steely silence. _Wrong answer_.  

They reach the entrance, he stops in front of her, holding her shoulders.

“Open minds, okay? I don’t like this either.” Her brows knit together. “What? _I don’t_. But I trust Rey. She has good instincts about people.”

“She impulse-married a crazy woman twice her age who all her friends hated. She spends her free time helping Poe pick up men. And her other friend is a disgruntled, cynical 60-year-old man, also divorced. I love Rey too, but that’s not your strongest argument.”

Sometimes it’s terrible being married to a lawyer.

“ _We_ met because of her.”

“True.” Her face softens ever so slightly. “But she lucked into both of us.” And she hardens right back up again.

“Well, they’re just friends, so this isn’t another Holdo situation. It’s very low stakes. Just clearing the air so we can be in the same room together. If necessary.”

“I’m not going to be nice,” she says, through gritted teeth.  “If I accidentally become charming, pinch me under the table or something.”

Finn smooths the tendrils of fine black hair that don’t quite stay in her ponytail.

“Same. But just a light pinch on the ass cheek, okay?”

Rose heaves a dramatic sigh and they walk inside.

The place is small, basically just a long bar in the winter when the patio is closed. But he immediately sees Rey and Kylo Ren (or Ben Solo, or maybe he has a third stupid alias by now?) huddling over her phone. He takes a step closer as he shrugs off his coat, seizing the opportunity to eavesdrop, with Rose lingering a step or two behind, already looking longingly at the exit.

“What _is_ that?” Kylo or Ben or whatever asks, pointing at the phone.

“I think it’s an elbow?” Rey suggests, squinting at the screen and rotating it slightly. “Maybe I can enlarge the photo.”

“Don’t do that—”

“Shit, I think it’s _her_ elbow.”

“Fuck.”

“Whoa. Respect.”

He doesn’t even want to know what’s on her screen (at least, not at _this_ particular moment), so Finn clears his throat and Rey whips her head around.

“Hey!” She attacks Finn with a hug, a touch too enthusiastically. “Look, we snagged the corner. I had to threaten a bunch of girls from East Williamsburg, but we did it.” She nudges Kylo Ren, who finally turns around. “There was almost a dance-off.”

“She’s very intimidating,” he says, in a low, strangely quiet voice. “And willing to make a scene.” He seems surprisingly uneasy, like he doesn’t know where to look, which makes Finn feel strangely better.  

“Believe me, I know.” Rose pinches his ass. Hard. Finn shoots her a warning look before sticking out his hand for some kind of official manly greeting. “I don’t know if you remember me, but you made my life a living hell for about four months of 2009.”

Kylo Ren doesn’t smile, but he also extends his hand.

“Ben.” They shake with what Finn assumes is extra firmness on both sides. “What is Kant’s categorical imperative?” Ben asks suddenly. Finn freezes.

 _What the hell?_ Ben’s expression is unreadable and uncomfortably close to the withering looks he doled out as T.A.  A few awkward seconds pass in silence.

“Oh my god, he’s kidding, Finn. That was a joke.” Rey elbows Ben. “I told you not to do that.” She steps forward to hug Finn and then Rose. “He’s very...dry.”

“Like the Sahara,” Finn mutters. “I really did not need that flashback, man.”  He can feel Rose seething behind him.

“Well, it all worked out,” Rey says very quickly, pushing the three others toward the barstools. “Because Finn was definitely not destined to be a philosophy major and having to do that extra semester made him realize that he wanted to teach, so...let’s never talk about that ethics class again.”

Perhaps sensing Rose’s ire, Rey not-so-subtly forces Finn and Ben to sit next to each other. The bar is dark, but Finn still has a clear view of the scar that Paige had mentioned to Rose. From what he could glean, the slashing incident had been the last straw.

“You’re a teacher?” Ben asks. _Genuine get-to-know-you chit chat or did Rey give him a script?_ Rose observes them coolly.

“Technically a vice principal now.”

“Finn is amazing with the kids,” Rey insists, ever the hype woman. She’s trying _really_ hard to bridge this gap.

“What made you want to teach?”

Rose suddenly pipes up from Finn’s right side.

“He had some really shitty, discouraging teachers in college and he decided that he could do better. _A lot better_.”  

She looks directly at Ben for the first time since they walked in. Finn knows that look; it never means anything good. He squeezes her knee under the table, finding her whole body tense with four years of enmity. She’s not done yet.

“I guess you could say that Paige decided the same thing.”

Ben’s eyebrows raise, but only slightly. He gives a little nod, as if to agree. Finn glances at his wife, but she’s still laser-focused on making Ben uncomfortable.

Rey sits up in her seat, apparently ready to interject again, but Ben waves her off without turning his head.

“Yes she did.” He’s looking directly at Rose, taking in her anger. “I don’t blame her,” he says evenly.

“Well she _is_ doing a lot better.”

“That’s...good.” Ben and Rose continue to stare at each other.

Rose furrows her brow, looking for some way to continue the argument, despite Ben’s apparent concession.

“I need you to know what you did,” she says, with a low, steady voice. “To Paige. To me. To our family. Not here, not now. But I’m going to tell you and you’re going to listen.”

Nobody moves until Ben nods once and says, “Okay.”  Rose nods, too.

The hipster bartender interrupts to take their drink orders and out of the corner of his eye, Finn sees Rey breathe a sigh of relief.  

He puts his hand on Rose’s back, checking in without saying anything, feeling some of the tension roll away.  It feels good to still be in awe of the person you’ve loved for seven years.

\--

On the first round of cocktails, Finn and Rose share the highlight reel of how they met and started dating. Ben has probably already heard the story from Rey, but Finn notes that he acts as though it’s all new to him. He doesn’t interrupt while the three of them reminisce. Sometimes Rey leans in and whispers an explanation when they laugh over an in-joke. Sometimes Rey and Ben seem to have in-jokes of their own.

On the second round, Rose starts asking Ben questions. And not softballs, either. He answers in a way that’s self-effacing and almost uncomfortably honest. Rey keeps glancing back and forth between Finn and Rose, with an cautious optimism. If they weren’t in such close quarters, she’d definitely be texting him for real-time pulse checks.

At 10 pm they need to get home to the babysitter, so they make their exit, a full hour after the fake emergency call. It hadn’t been the _most_ relaxing night out, but it could have gone worse.  

On the chilly walk home, Rose is quiet again. Finn asks innocuous questions about the new restaurants popping up on Vanderbilt and their anxieties over getting Alice into the public school down the block, because apparently that’s not a thing you can just do.

When they stop at a crosswalk near Grand Army Plaza, he tires of one-sided small talk.

“They’re totally going to become a thing, aren’t they?” she says suddenly.

“Busting out of the friendzone like the Kool-Aid man through a brick wall.”

Rose nods, with quiet resignation.

“Millions of people in this city and it’s that guy. Again.”

“I mean, you never know,” Finn continues as the light changes and they cross the street. “Rey says they’re both dating other—.”

“Oh please.”

“Yeah, I know.” He takes her hand. “Okay, well as long as it’s inevitable, should we make it interesting? Price is Right rules?  It’s almost Christmas so...by Memorial Day?”

Rose stops to face him, cupping his face with her cold hands.

“Finn. I love you. But you’re a fool if you think they’re going to make it past Valentine’s Day as friends.”

 

\-----|----

 

“Hang on a sec, I’m gonna open the window.” Rey pulls the window open and stands in front of it for a few glorious, frigid seconds before retrieving the phone again. “I swear to God, it’s 87 degrees in here.”

“It’s barely 65 in here. Do you know how difficult it is to efficiently heat a loft with twenty foot ceilings?”

“Hey, at least you can put on more layers. I’m out of clothes to take off.”

No response.

“Ben, for once I’m going to tell you I’m naked and _mean_ it. Actually, you know what? It’s happening.”

Another pause. Leonardo DiCaprio goes another level deeper into some overly complicated architectural dream.

“I don’t believe you.”

And he shouldn’t because Rey is not naked.

But now she’s thinking about it. Because it _is_ really hot. And she’s _curious about what it would feel like to hear his voice in her ear ( _that fucking voice_ )...and be naked. That’s a thing that hasn’t happened yet, even though she went ahead and downloaded the voicemail for safekeeping._

__

She peels off her shirt. It’s Amilyn’s extra soft Lilith Fair shirt. He doesn’t need to know that she still has a drawer filled with her ex’s old shirts. Underwear? Who needs it?

The underwear comes off.

“Although I’ve given you no reason to believe me—”

“Like Lucy with the football.”

“—I really am naked this time.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

She sits back down on the bed, underneath the fan, not feeling any cooler.

“I don’t sound naked right now?”

“No.”

She says nothing, but just listens to him breathe on the other end, half tempted to ask him to read another Chuck Tingle passage. Actually neither of them have mentioned the voicemail. The room is quiet, except for the movie, which has become nothing more than background noise.

 _“She had locked something away, something deep inside her. The truth that she had once known, but... she chose to forget.”_ Distracting. She pushes the laptop to the right side of the bed and gives up on paying attention.

“Prove it.”  It sounds like an order more than a suggestion. It makes her breath hitch.

“Fine.”  

“I paused the movie, so take your time.”

She mutes her phone and searches one of the subreddits where girls post selfies. After some scrolling, she finds a nice one with the head cropped from the photo and breasts that make her jealous. She downloads it and texts it to Ben.

“That’s not you,” he says, right after the text message chimes. “Thank you for the photo, though.”

She un-mutes the phone.

“How would you know?”

“What do you mean, ‘How would I know?’ I know. That’s not your apartment. Or your body.”

Despite the heat, goosebumps start to form across her arms.

“My bad for selecting a photo of a girl with clearly superior boobs.”  

“I doubt that.” She bites her lip. A few seconds pass.  “Are you afraid to show me?”

“No.”

She says it automatically because she will always rise to a challenge.

But she’s also acutely aware of her heartbeat, which is currently pounding like a bass drum. And why is his distinctive way of saying “show me” playing on a loop in her head? She blames the voicemail. _It must have unlocked some involuntary meridian response._

Really, she should rein this in now. But she hasn’t felt like this in months...this _need_.  It feels good and right.

Consumed with a sudden desire to show him _everything_ , she mutes the phone and takes some experimental selfies. Tasteful, nothing insanely explicit. There’s one in particular she actually likes, no filters required. And she’s rarely satisfied with her selfies.

Her thumb hovers over the upload button. She imagines Ben receiving it, maybe tapping to make it fill the phone screen.

How many times has she played back the voicemail? (More times than she cares to count.) How often would he look at the picture? (He could turn it into his lock screen.) She pulls back her thumb. To send it would give him too much control. She unmutes the phone and leans back into the pillows.

“Maybe if you had a Snapchat account,” she adds, knowing full well that he barely tolerates iMessage. “Let’s finish the movie so you can pretend not to remember that I was right about the end.”

\--

After they hang up, Rey looks through the camera roll again. The picture _is_ good. Maybe worth snapping to the straight edge bike messenger she’s been chatting with off and on. But when she opens the app, she notices it right away: the username it in the “Added Me” section.

She nods to herself. _Okay_. Either he’s still dating a Lauren and was coerced into a Snapchat account...or he really wants that proof.

 

\---------

 

Ben Swolo  
  
**Today** 1:03 PM  
**Rey:** On the train.  
  
We said 1:45 right?  
  
**Ben:** 1:30  
  
**Rey:** In that case I’ll be 15 min late  
  
  
**Today** 1:38 PM  
**Rey:** Off the train. Walking.  
  
Do you think I could be a unicorn?  
  
**Ben:**...  
  
Context?  
  
(Are you late because you're high?)  
  
**Rey:** It’s a person who enters an existing relationship as a third.   
  
Like, a couple plus me.   
  
**Ben:** So you ARE high.  
  
**Rey:** I’ve been thinking about it. It’s very little commitment.   
  
I assume they would just want me to clear out afterward so they can cuddle with each other.   
  
Sound perfect tbh   
  
**Ben:** That’s good enough for you?   
  
**Rey:** Not everyone wants to be someone else’s entire world.   
  
I’ve been alone my whole life, why stop now?  
  
**Ben:** You were married.   
  
**Rey:** Yeah and look how that turned out.   
  
Biggest mistake I ever made.  
  
When you’re married, you don’t realize how dependent you become. I see it now.  
  
Total clarity.  
  
Never again.  
  
**Ben:** So you’re going to settle for someone else’s leftovers?   
  
Where are you?   
  
**Rey:** It’s really hot to feel desired by two people at one time, you know?  
  
On Houston.  
  
**Ben:** Feeling desired by one person is challenging enough, thank you.   
  
**Rey:** Omg STOP.   
  
That sad “poor me” bullshit  
  
I can’t.   
  
**Ben:** Excuse me?   
  
**Rey:** Never thought I’d say this, but sometimes I kinda miss Kylo Ren.  
  
(Rey: Eyes Emoji )  
  
**Ben:**...  
  
**Rey:** Not the terrible political opinions.  
  
But sometimes  
  
There are aspects...   
  
Just passed Orchard.   
  
**Ben:** Such as?  
  
**Rey:** I dunno...the undeserved confidence?   
  
Abrasive personality?  
  
Aggressive dirty texting?   
  
**Ben:** Oh.  
  
**Rey:** Ok I'm here   
  
Shit it’s crowded.  
  
I can’t believe you put up with this for a pastrami sandwich.   
  
**Ben:** It’s really good pastrami.   
  
Fucking tourists though.  
  
**Rey:** Where are you?   
**Ben:** In line.   
  
Don't lose your ticket this time.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the next thing to read is a [one-shot that will pick up exactly where this chapter leaves off](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239074). It's titled "I'll Have What She's Having" if that gives you an idea of what's coming. Cough. [Edited to add that unless you are really smut-averse, you should probably read it because it has become slightly more canonical to the story than I anticipated.]
> 
> I really let them lay into Inception, which is actually I movie I like a lot, so apologies to fellow Chris Nolan stans!
> 
> Oh, Burp Castle is a beer bar where you're supposed to be quiet (and the bartenders dress link monks, it's a bit gimmicky). I've been on a bunch of first dates there (shudder). Oh, I was also on a first date at Zach Braff's stupid seafood place.
> 
> Forgot to mention, in case it was a random confusing detail, the ticket is this weird system at Katz's where you get a ticket when you enter and if you lose it when you pay the cashier, you have to pay like $20. Head canon that Rey definitely lost a ticket in the past, greatly annoying Ben.


	10. Merry Christmas, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chunk of holiday cheer is brought to you by one wordless 5 second scene of Harry and Sally buying a Christmas tree. It turned into this. 
> 
> New Years Eve fluff coming up in the next chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does deal with the events of the questionably canon one-shot, [I'll Have What She's Having. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239074) Which might make this chapter questionably canon. It's kind of a Christmas fever dream. It's not going to come up in any kind of big way again, but I highly suggest you read it if you want to follow along with this particular chapter. 
> 
> Also, if you like smut, you should just read it anyway because I wrote it FOR YOU. 
> 
> If you haven't read it or are smut-averse, what you missed is that Ben and Rey got in a bit of a dick measuring contest over a particular sexual skill. A pair of underwear was ruined and Rey got pretty much pwned, but she also kind of won too.

When Rey gets home from the movie, she marches into her bedroom, grabs her earbuds, puts on a pair of underwear, and a fresh pair of leggings, laces her sneakers, and heads downstairs to the treadmill like a woman on a goddamn mission. The grimey gym on the ground floor of her building isn’t crowded on a Saturday at 5 pm and she runs about 6 miles while listening to Nine Inch Nails’ “Discipline” on repeat. According to her app, it’s one of her best times ever. 

_Yes. Yes it was_. 

_Shit._

She plays back the series of interactions that happened after (no need to review _that_ ). They were both quiet at the movie and nothing that happened post-pastrami sandwiches was mentioned. Nor did they make any future plans when they parted ways outside the theater. 

_Which is good_. 

A little distance. Cool down period. 

Rey is positive that Ben will text that night. She makes a plan to ignore the message for approximately twelve hours and then casually respond the next day. _Oh sorry didn’t see this. We good?_

Only he doesn’t. 

Sometimes she’s distracted enough that she forgets about the whole thing. And then she remembers and her pulse starts racing and there’s a knot in her stomach. 

No swooping feeling. No butterflies. It’s not that kind of feeling at all. 

It’s waiting. It’s not being in control. It’s having had something precious and then getting it snatched away in an instant because of some stupid mistake.

And then three days go by. 

On the third day, she goes on a date with a couple, just to prove that Ben’s wrong about _something_. But when she goes back to their place, the couple lose their collective nerve and awkwardly ask her to leave after twenty minutes of Netflix and _no_ chill. It stings more than it should. 

By the fifth day, the silence has gone on long enough that she knows it’s a stand-off. She’s also glad that she doesn’t have to tell Ben that she’s getting drunk at Maz’s bar with Han and Poe. 

On the seventh day, she breaks down and texts a guy who she remembers being pretty skilled with his hands. But maybe her memory isn’t so great because she manages one mediocre orgasm, probably from sheer force of will, and then has to ask him to...just...not do that anymore. 

After Rey gets back to her apartment, she angrily rifles through the box next to her bed (she still lacks a proper bedside table because apparently that shithead Sheldon didn't have one of those either), searching for the most effective vibrator she owns.

“Why are they all _purple_?” she yells, making a mental note to organize them someday. She finally finds the one she’s looking for. By some miracle, it still has charge. 

Ninety seconds later, things feel okay. Back on an even keel. 

She pats herself on the back for not listening to the voicemail again. 

But truthfully, it’s just been replaced by something else. 

The next day, Rey gives in and texts Ben. For a specific reason, which is very different than just texting to say “hi.” She doesn’t refer to anything that happened last week, just plays it cool. _Like, really, incredibly cool._

Ben Swolo  
  
**Rey:** Here's the thing  
  
I never had a Christmas tree.  
  
Amilyn always liked to go on vacation over the holidays.  
  
In law school, Rose always went home to her family  
  
It seemed like a silly indulgence to get a tree _and_ a tree stand _and_ lights _and_ ornaments _and_ ornament hooks for one person.   
  
But I want one  
  
I always wanted one.  
  
And if I’m going to be alone in this stupid apartment while the rest of the world has “family time” I want to look at my damn lit up TREE while I sit here and vape weed and watch the Hallmark Channel.  
  
**Ben:** I'm sorry. Who is this?   
  
**Rey:** IT'S NEW PHONE WHO DIS. OMG.  
  
**Ben:** Anything else?   
  
**Rey:** Oh shit. Yes.   
  
The reason I’m texting is that I need help carrying the tree.  
  


\--

Ben agrees to help her carry it to her apartment from the tree stand in exchange for a stop at King of Falafel and her help patching up some drywall at the loft. (He’s suspiciously incompetent at these simple renovation tasks.) He also doesn’t mention what took place last week. _Maybe it was a hallucination?_

Ben also insists on picking out the tree, which means a freezing-cold extra twenty minutes of fussing over branch shapes and straight trunks. Rey prefers the Charlie Brown-looking, needle-bare tree on the end, but rolls his eyes and insists she get “a nice Fraser fir” with the full branches. 

Just as Rey expresses her desire to wrap a light blue blanket around the base of the tree that “just needs a little love,” a bald man with a puffy coat brushes past them, whipping his head around.

“Are you...that guy?” the bald man demands, taking a step back.

“Excuse me?” Rey responds, even though the question was clearly not directed at her.

“That First Order guy. With the dumbass name,” he continues, eyes narrowing. Ben has a few inches on him, but it doesn’t seem to matter. 

“Do we _know_ you?” Rey spits back, practically stepping in the guys face.

“Rey, stop,” Ben says, pulling her back by the arm. 

“You’re a fucking fascist _asshole_ and I hope you rot in hell,” the man barks, moving swiftly down the sidewalk before either Rey or Ben can react. 

“What the fuck was that?” Rey asks, ignoring the mildly irritated stares of the other people browsing the tree stand. 

“That...happens sometimes.”

“It does?”

“Not as often anymore, but...yeah. From that guy’s perspective, I probably deserve worse.”

“You just let random people yell at you?”

“Do you have any idea how much worse it could get for me if I’m involved in a shouting match and someone records it? My lawyer says to just lay low and wait for people to forget who I am.”

“And you’re not angry about it?”

“Of course I’m angry. It makes me fucking insane.” He runs a hand through his hair. Rey huffs on his behalf. “Oh, so you’re indignant now? Are you forgetting the way you ambushed me on the plane?”

“Well you weren’t exactly a stranger.” She waits a beat. “Did you also leave that guy high and dry in the passenger seat of an RV?” 

He gives her a sharp look and she knows she’s pushing it. 

“Speaking of the plane,” she says, suddenly becoming very interested in a Blue Spruce, “do you still write dirty texts or have you moved on to dirty voicemails, exclusively?”

“What was that?” 

She runs her hand across the needles, which turn out to be rather sharp.

“You heard me.” 

“I still have thumbs, don’t I?” 

“Yes. You do.” 

_The price tag on this Blue Spruce is truly fascinating._

She feels Ben tilt his head down so his mouth is close to her ear. She drops the price tag.

“Someone left you a dirty voicemail?” he asks. In the same voice he used to record it. She bites back a whimper and forces herself to regain her composure.

“What is that?” She swats at his chest. “What is that voice? It’s obviously you, but it has this... different quality.”

“I took vocal coaching before I started doing on-air stuff,” he says with a little shrug.

“Someone trained you to speak like that? Shit. That was…money well spent.”

“So you listened to the whole thing?” 

“Yeah, just, you know, a handful of times.” He raises an eyebrow as she walks past him to the tree stand guy to tell him she wants the Fraser Fir. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.” 

\----------------

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Kaydel:** I need you to confirm the 31st.   
  
And whether you have a plus 1  
  
Leia strongly prefers that you bring a plus 1  
  
She still has 3 more seats at the table.  
  
Pls respond.  
  
ASAP  
  
**Ben:** What is this about?  
  


God, not another brunch. 

**Kaydel:** The fundraiser for the Historical Society. On the 31st.  
  
Leia bought a table, we need to fill the seats.   
  
She says she already asked you and you agreed.  
  


Unlikely. Although at least it’s not a political event. 

**Kaydel:** And that you would bring a plus 1.  
  


VERY UNLIKELY.

**Ben:** Jan 31st?  
  
**Kaydel:** December 31st.  
  


NO CHANCE IN HELL HE AGREED TO THAT.

**Ben:** Ok, I can CONFIRM that I will not be there.  
  
**Kaydel:** Plus 1?  
  
**Ben:** Really, Kaydel?  
  


 

Like clockwork, a new message appears: 

Leia  
  
**Leia:** I don’t like invoking this but I will.   
  
You owe me.  
  
Quite a lot.  
  
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to fill seats for a fundraiser on New Year’s Eve?   
  
Figure something out.  
  


He doesn’t bother responding. 

\------------

Two days later, Ben brings over a bin of old holiday decorations from the loft and watches as Rey sorts through his own personal Ghosts of Christmases past. 

The previous week had felt like some fucked up roller coaster ride: climbing to the the top, the rush coming down, followed by days of looping, spiraling thoughts and fakeouts. But despite how difficult it had been _not_ to text Rey, with each day, he felt better. Not because he didn’t want to talk to her; he’d been dying to hear her voice. But in depriving himself of that, he’d unearthed some inner resource that he hadn’t tapped into in months. In fact, he’d set up not one, but _two_ more Tinder dates. 

By the time Rey had finally texted, he felt like he’d _won_ something for the first time in almost a year. 

He’d also been so fucking tempted to cancel those dates. But he hasn’t. Yet.

“I thought you were Jewish,” Rey says, pulling out an excessive number of elves and reindeer from the bin. 

“I am. I mean, Leia is. I think they just wanted to do the secular thing so I’d have the cultural context for Santa.”

“So tiny Ben thought Santa was real?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” He puts the snowman and reindeer into separate, neat piles on the coffee table. “By the time I figured out the truth about Santa, my parents were already fighting anyway.” 

Putting up decorations and acting like this happy family for a week became an annual Organa-Solo tradition of slapping a band-aid over the arguments and absences. And then one year, Leia had to be away on business and going through the motions with Han became unbearable, so they stopped pretending. 

“So, is this...okay?” Rey asks gently, putting down an elf on the snowman pile. “Sorting through this stuff?” 

He’s about to insist that it’s fine, but when it really thinks about it... _fuck all of these smiling elves_.

“I mean, it doesn’t feel _great_.” He tries to pinpoint the last time he felt great. Aside from _that._ “But you said you never had the whole experience, so I thought—.”

“You know what? I kinda had this idea about making decorations. Like one year, in elementary school, we took white paper and folded it in a triangle shape and made little cuts and they turned into snowflakes. That was the closest I ever got to snow until college. I tried to make them at my foster home but I got screamed at for wasting paper.”

Ben looks down at the bin practically overflowing with the finest cheesy holiday decorations the late 80s had to offer, wondering if he’s actually just an asshole who invented all his problems. 

“We can just use the white string lights,” he suggests, pulling a tangled web of them out of the bin and shutting it. “They’d look nice with the snowflakes.”

She nods, rising to her feet. “I have paper in the printer. I just hope Amilyn didn’t take the good scissors.”

While Rey searches for snowflake supplies, Ben addresses his nagging, increasingly insistent phone. 

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Kaydel:** So, can we confirm that you’ll be there on the 31st?   
  
**Ben:** Why does she think I’ll be able to find a “plus 1” for some boring fundraiser on NEW YEARS FUCKING EVE?   
  
It’s not something you invite a first date to.  
  
**Kaydel:** Maybe you should get to the second date stage.   
  
What about Rey?  
  


He can see Leia’s gears turning across the East River. 

  
**Ben:** How do YOU know about Rey?  
  
**Kaydel:** I see your mind.   
  
I see your every intent.  
  
**Ben:**....  
  
**Kaydel:** jk jk  
  
Leia pays me to know.   
  
Anyway, ask her and then confirm with me today.   
  
I still have three more seats to fill and I don’t want to end up filling one myself.  
  


Rey reappears with a comically large stack of white paper and two pairs of scissors. 

“Is something wrong?”

“Just looking up how to fold these things,” he replies, quickly looking up how to fold these things on his phone. 

“You seem a little freaked out.” She puts the paper down on the coffee table with a small thud and takes a seat on the floor. 

“I take papercraft very seriously.” He doesn’t look up from his phone.

“Is there something you _don’t_ take seriously?”

\--

Between Rey’s aptitude for the mechanics of the folding and Ben’s Edward Scissorhands-like dexterity with cutting, they produce more than enough snowflakes to cover the tree. 

“We should put the lights on first,” Ben points out. 

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I’ve never done this.” 

“Something tells me you’ll be faster at this than I would be,” he says, handing her the massive knot of white string lights to untangle. “With your small fingers.”

Her eyes are cast down on the tangle of of green wire, but Ben is 97% sure she blushes. Since they both have other things to look at right now, it might be a good time to ask...

“DoyouhaveplansforNewYears?” _Fuck_. It comes out in a mumbled rush and he’ll have to repeat it. Probably slowly and with eye contact. 

“What?” Rey looks up. “Did you say something about New Years?”

“What are your plans?” he repeats.

“Oh.” She looks surprisingly sheepish. “I might offer to babysit and _Twilight Zone_ marathon until I fall asleep at 4 am.”

“Really?” 

“New Year’s Eve is such a _thing_. It’s crowded. It’s expensive—”

“It’s a bridge-and-tunnel holiday.” Rey spares a moment to glare at him for being such a Manhattanite.

“—you have to get all dressed up and act like you’re in a good mood. It’s like all the worst aspects of dating. And I don’t really want to do that with some random person I have to be polite to.”

“You? Polite?”

“And sometimes there’s dancing.” She shudders. 

“Terrible,” Ben agrees. 

“I had to do the arm candy thing at those annoying ticketed events with Amilyn. But at least I could complain to her. And she would make it up to me. Afterward.” His breath hitches. “What about you? Taking another aspiring actress to Nobu or something?”

This is either the best or worst time to bring it up. She returns her attention to untangling the lights. 

“I actually got roped into to an annoying ticketed event. With Leia.”

“Oh.” _Does she look a bit relieved?_ “Well, it’s kind of sweet of you to volunteer to be your mom’s date.” The actual string of lights is beginning to emerge from the tightly wound ball.

“What? God no. She bought a table at this fundraiser and she’s trying to fill the seats.” He pauses. “Actually, she asked me to invite you.” 

“Your mom knows who I am?”

“I might have mentioned you. In passing. That you’ve been helping me with the loft.”

“Oh. Your ‘loft helper,’ huh?” The right corner of her mouth starts to curve into a smile. “Do you usually invite your handyman out on the biggest date night of the year?”

“No, this would be a first.”

“I’d have to dress up.”

“Something in between black tie and sweatpants.”

“No coveralls?”

“Formal coveralls.”

“Dancing?”

“Never. We don’t have to stay past midnight. We can leave and watch _Twilight Zone_ episodes on my sofa.”

He’s presuming both a two-part evening and an awful lot of “we” at this point. Rey seems to notice this language shift, but she doesn’t mention it. 

“Okay.” She loosens the last knot from the lights. “But only if I can complain during the event _and_ you make it up to me. Afterward.” 

She’s still looking at the lights, even though the knots have all been undone. 

“Right. On my sofa.” He waits a beat too long. “With the _Twilight Zone_ marathon.” 

Rey stands up, lights in hand, and walks over to the outlet closest to the tree. She plugs them in and...nothing. She looks defeated.

“Shit. Why didn’t we plug them in first?”

“They’re probably twenty years old,” Ben points out. “We can just toss them and by some new ones.” 

“No way, I can fix these. I just need to test every bulb…” 

\---------------------

Rose  
  
**Rose:** See you outside Drump Tower tmrw? As per ush…   
  
Made a new sign  
  
**Rey:** You know it.   
  
**Rose:** Coolcoolcool   
  
Oh btw  
  
We have a staff attorney position opening up at the NYCLU  
  
Interested???  
  
Maybe??  
  
**Rey:** I’m not even a member of the Bar.  
  
And I have a job. And loans.   
  
And my own lawyers to pay.  
  
**Rose:** You want to be Lando’s fixer forever?   
  
**Rey:** I'm a strategist, thank you very much.  
  
**Rose:** Fine   
  
Hey, I need Ben's number.  
  
**Rey:**? Why?  
  
**Rose:** I want to have a conversation.  
  
He agreed to sit down with me and I’m holding him to it.  
  
**Rey:** About?  
  
**Rose:** Really, Rey?  
  
He tacitly supported an organization that goes against everything I stand for.   
  
And you stand for.   
  
**Rey:** Pretty sure libertarians believe in civil rights.  
  
And haven’t heard him say a word about politics since we’ve been hanging.  
  
**Rose:** He called us paid protesters last year.   
  
And he LEFT the First Order.  
  
**Rose:** He helped build that machine for 8 YEARS, Rey. That’s a fucking long time not to know any better.   
  


\---------

  
Private  
  
**Hux:** Need to speak with you 3 JAN at 11  
  
**Ben:** How did you get this number?   
  
**Hux:** Not your concern  
  
My assistant will send the details   
  
**Ben:** You mean your intern?  
  
I’m not meeting you anywhere you sniveling little fuck.  
  
**Hux:** Not even to break up the monotony of your worthless existence?  
  
I may have an opportunity for you.   
  
You can’t lift weights all day.   
  
3 JAN. And wear a suit for God’s sake.   
  


———————

 

“You want to put the presents under the tree right before we’re about to open them?”

“Yes. It’s my first time putting presents under the tree, I want the whole experience. I want to put them under it, leave them there for at least a minute, and then open them up, direct from under the tree, just as Santa intended. I can’t believe I almost forgot about that part.” 

“Whatever you say.” He slides the wrapped packages under the lowest branches and sits back down on the couch. They agreed to celebrate secular Christmas in front of Rey’s tree on December 27.

Rey digs back into the lo mein with her chopsticks. The credits roll on _Gremlins_. 

“Are you just eating all the shrimp?”

“No,” Rey insists, mouth full of shrimp. “I’m eating the whole container. Did you want more?”

“I think I’m good with the spread we have,” Ben says, looking over the open cartons that completely cover the surface of the coffee table. The Chinese food is Ben’s cultural contribution to the festivities. Of course, it looks like more than it is because of all the sauces on the side, in separate containers. 

“Presents? I think they’ve been incubated under there for a good twenty seconds. You open first,” she insists, getting up to grab two large boxes packages. 

“Patience really isn’t your strong suit.” 

He tears into the first package: a Dust Daddy. The little cartoon mascot on the box has been taped over with a picture of Ben. 

“We have a ton of cleaning to do in the loft, you _know_ it’ll be useful,” she insists. “It’s really dusty in there.”

“You _did_ say I could be the Dust Daddy.” 

“Already changed your contact name in my phone.”

He opens the second, bigger box. There’s a very 80s looking VCR that looks suspiciously like the broken one from the loft that was supposed to be in the electronics recycling pile. Next to it is a tape of the Sesame Street special he’d mentioned at the Met.

“It’s only available on VHS, which is insane. So I fixed your VCR and now we can watch it. I mean, you could watch it alone, too. Kind of a weird thing for a grown man to do, though.”

Memories of watching tapes in front of that ancient VCR come flooding back. It had always been an escape from whatever was happening in the rest of the apartment. He looks up from the box. 

“This is..." He swallows hard. "Thank you. Want to watch it tonight?”

She nods. 

He ducks down to grab her presents, a medium and a small box from under the tree. 

“I, uh, went a different way with your presents,” he says with a twinge of hesitation, before handing the medium box over.

Rey gives him a quizzical look as she runs her index finger under the seam of the beautifully wrapped box, almost afraid to ruin its perfect presentation. Under layers of tissue paper (even the tissue paper looks upscale) is a pair of panties. Vaguely similar to, but much, _much_ nicer than the pair that fell victim to Ben’s enormous hands. 

“I—”

“I didn’t know what kind you had, but you said they were a good pair so…”

“Uh...not Agent Provocateur nice. I mean, not by a long shot.” She rubs the black lace mesh material between her thumb and forefinger. It’s very sheer. “Come on. There’s no _way_ you thought these were equivalent.” 

He starts to reach for the box.

“I can take them back and get the exact pair you—”

“No!” Rey cries, clutching the box to her chest, dignity not getting in the way of the nicest lingerie she’ll probably ever own. “I mean... I love them and I’m keeping them. Please.” 

“Good.”

He hands her the second box, which is tiny: the kind of box that holds earrings. It’s also perfectly wrapped in the way they do on TV, where you just lift the lid off without tearing the paper. 

“Did you wrap this yourself?” 

“I have a lotof time on my hands.”

There are no earrings. What’s inside is something she hasn’t seen in...probably eight years: an iPod Shuffle, the kind they don’t make anymore. It looks just like the one she had in college. But this one is shiny and new. 

“What…”

“I put some stuff on there for you.” 

“Like a mixtape?”

“No.” He pauses, like he’s waiting for something to click in her mind. “I recorded a few things and loaded them on there.”

“You recorded music?”

“The voicemail, Rey.” 

She picks up the tiny device, furrowing her brow.

“You filled this with whole thing with gay parody erotica? That’s....you _do_ have a lot of time on your hands.” 

“It’s not the whole thing.” He pauses. “And it’s not Chuck Tingle.”

“Ohh.” She looks thoughtfully at the box. “Jesus, I mean, this is amazing, but...I’ll probably never leave the house again.”

“You’re welcome and I’m not sorry.” She’s turning the little device over in her hand. “We don’t have to watch the tape right now if you really just want me to leave so you can... be alone.”

She throws her last shrimp at him. 

“I have _some_ self-control, you know.”

“Do you?”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, something awkward about relationships that form just before Christmas is that you need to figure out the right level of intimacy in terms of the appropriate holiday gift for the other person. One of our idiots gets that. The other...does not. 
> 
> EDIT: I wasn't sure if I was going to put this out there, but...I have another possible one-shot for the end of this chapter. It's just a concept at this point, but I wanted to set up for it, which is part of the reason the gift exchange goes the way it does...
> 
> New Years Ever fluff insanity will be coming next. It was supposed to be part of this chapter, but there is so much going on in that chapter that I wanted to get this bit out of the way first. And NYE is getting fluffier by the second. I'm covered in fluff. I have two slow dances, a minor celebrity musical performance, a potential bridal carry, and possible bed sharing. So I cleaved it into its own monster chapter. 
> 
> Now, a special announcement: I'm giving away a couple "opportunities" to be written into this fic. These two idiots have to date other people at some point and I don't really want to use more random SW names. In other words, this is your chance to be Ben or Rey's temporary girlfriend. LOL. So please check my [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/post/179133545357/doing-the-unstuck-updated-and-a-giveaway-of) for details if you're interested. Basically all you have to do is reblog the post and I'll throw your name in the digital hat.


	11. Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's New Year's Eve. You know what happens at midnight on New Year's Eve. 
> 
> So here's 5000 words about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, a huge thank you to amazing writer [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum/works) for graciously reading this chapter _twice_ , being right about everything, and helping me make this better. My god, I hope she gets two bonus hours of her life back. She can truly make anything sound appealing. Even “caf.”
> 
> Secondly, I had mentioned last week that this chapter was really fluffy. And I think it mostly is. Because there are _two_ slow dancing scenes. But I kind of forgot that it’s an important turning point in the story (or, at least, several scholarly essays on WHMS have told me that), so I won’t lie, it gets a _little_ heavier than I had originally planned at the end. 
> 
> There are a couple significant songs mentioned in this chapter: [Open Your Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp6X_r62zNY) and [Don’t Dream It’s Over](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9gKyRmic20).

On New Years Eve, Ben waits outside the New York Historical Society until 9:10 before texting her. 

Rey  
  
**Ben:** ETA?  
  
**Rey:** I’m on 74th and Columbus. Walking.  
  
**Ben:** Are you lost?  
  
**Rey:** Yes, the grid system still confuses me after eight years.  
  
**Ben:** It’s on 77th.  
  
**Rey:** I know. I stopped at Gray’s Papaya.  
  
**Ben:** You’re already late.  
  
**Rey:** I’ve never been! Finally got that famous papaya drink. New year, new me.   
  
**Ben:** How was it?  
  
**Rey:** Terrible. Why does anyone eat there?  
  
**Ben:** The sooner you get here, the sooner we can leave.  
  
**Rey:** So glad you invited me to this.   
  


Ten minutes later, Rey rounds the corner wrapped in a long gray puffer down coat, holding a giant styrofoam cup. 

“Hey, Dust Daddy!”

He’s ready to scold her for being twenty minutes late and using that ridiculous nickname that he both hates and enjoys, but he only manages a flustered, “It’s...you.” 

Ben has never really noticed her wearing makeup before, even though he’s sure she must. She looks...like herself, but little bit _more_? And her hair is down, in loose waves, longer than he remembers. Maybe. He can’t recall the last time he saw her without a messy bun or a ponytail. It’s not a huge transformation. But she clearly put effort into this favor and there’s something...touching about it. 

“Yes. You invited me? Or are we doing a bit where we pretend we’re meeting for the fourth time?” She moves a bit closer, into his personal space. “You shaved.” Rey takes her hand, still warm from the pocket of her coat and presses it against his face, rubbing her thumb along his cold cheek. “I like it. I can see your face better.”

He swallows and checks his phone. 

“It’s almost nine thirty—”

“Look at these shoes, there was no chance I _wasn’t_ going to be late in heels this high.”

“—we can put in an appearance and then leave.”

“I’m missing, like, five _Twilight Zone_ episodes for this and if one of those is ‘Time Enough at Last,’ I’ll be really upset.” 

“The entire series is on Netflix and I said I would make it up to you. After this. Come on.” He nods toward the museum entrance.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, I’m just the ‘plus one.’ Want the rest of this?” she asks, thrusting the papaya drink at him. 

He wordlessly takes it and throws it in the trash can on the corner. 

After checking in with an annoyed-looking young woman holding an iPad (who is _not_ amused when Rey gives their names as “Dust Daddy and Plus One”), they continue inside and Rey removes what she affectionately terms her “sleeping bag coat.” 

His eyes lock on to her back first, because, well, it’s... _bare_ , except for two dangerously thin straps that cross once. He’s never actually seen this part of her: graceful curves and muscles that reveal themselves when she hands the coat across the counter. He’s still staring ( _did the coat check person ask something?_ ) when she turns around and asks if her dress is okay. 

It’s fluid black silk with a slit that comes up tantalizingly high on her thigh.

_Okay?_

“I wasn’t sure of the crowd here. I stuffed a cardigan into my coat pocket if it’s too—” 

“No!” Ben says too quickly. “It’s…” _Exquisite? Flawless? What would it take to snap one of those straps?_ “...nice.”

“I thought about just doing a rerun from last year, but I didn’t want to be reminded of Amilyn tonight. New year and all that.” 

“It’s... I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear black. I like it.” The neckline plunges into a low V. This is new visual information, as well. Her breasts are covered by two small triangles of fabric held up by those tiny straps: the kind of thing where it’s very apparent that there’s no bra underneath. He really does his best not to let his eyes linger, but…

“Of course you like it, it's your only color” she says as he hands over his coat and takes the claim ticket. “I took a wild leap of faith and assumed you’d be wearing black, so I decided go all-in on the ‘goth wedding guest’ aesthetic. Can we visit the bar first?”

Ben does a little nod in the direction of the elevator. 

“You look nice, too, by the way,” she adds. 

He finds that his right hand keeps trying to place itself on the small of her back as they walk. He clenches it in a fist. 

The bar is set up in a dark, jewel-box-like gallery filled with antique Tiffany lamps, all dramatically lit, with a translucent staircase in the middle. 

“I can’t understand why these things are so upscale and expensive if the point is to raise money,” she says. “What?”

“I did agree that you could complain the whole time.”

“I never feel comfortable at these things. But, I admit that this is... _prettier_ than a political fundraiser. I mean, I love old lamps. I wish I could see how they retrofitted these...”

It’s not surprising that she takes an interest in beautiful old things made to work again, but they’re a far cry from the junk she sifted through in the loft. 

“Huh,” she says, reading a text panel next to a glass display case. “Turns out that Louis Comfort Tiffany didn’t even design most of these. As usual, it was a woman, toiling in obscurity.”

Ben scans the text panel.

“It says she and her staff were ‘well-compensated,’” he points out.

“Yeah, well it doesn’t say ‘Clara Driscoll Gallery’ on the door, now does it?”

“This is the last time I take you to a museum, Plus One.”

“Sorry for pointing out the systematic oppression of women, Dust Daddy. Sounds like I’m getting the hairbrush again,” she says too loudly as a gray-haired couple passes by. 

Ben feels something in his pants, but this time it really is his phone.

Leia  
  
**Leia:** Where are you?  
  
**Ben:** Getting a drink.   
  
**Leia:** If I don’t see you in ten minutes, I’m sending Kaydel.  
  
**Ben:** Rey is a big Art Nouveau fan. We’re looking at the lamps.   
  
**Leia:** Oh! Tell Rey to take as much time as she wants.   
  


After two more-leisurely-than-necessary drinks, they meander to the library, where the dinner is taking place. 

Leia is easy to spot. She’s always had a certain queenly flair for these kinds of gatherings. But Ben is surprised to see his mother talking with Lando Calrissian. Rey looks nonplussed by the sight of her boss, but heads straight for them, leaving Ben hanging back. It’s probably rude, but there’s something about this interaction that he wants to observe without taking part in it. 

Rey greets Lando with a little hug. He also looks a bit surprised to see her there. There’s what looks like an introduction to Leia, followed by an embrace and a cheek kiss and, terrifyingly, an extended moment where his mother holds Rey’s shoulders at arm’s length and looks at her like she’s examining a sweater at Bergdorf’s. _Fuck_. 

He hastily makes his way over to them, greeting Lando first, while Leia is still fussing over Rey. It’s been years, and he’s certainly older, but no less suave. 

“I didn’t know you were seeing Rey,” Lando says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, we’re not...we’re just—” He doesn’t finish the thought, as Lando gets pulled away into another conversation.

“There he is,” Leia says, releasing Rey’s shoulders and giving Ben an air kiss on the cheek. “We’re all going to take a picture later, okay?”

“This isn’t prom.” 

“Oh, we should definitely take a prom picture,” Rey suggests, probably giving Leia visions of future grandchildren. “Like the classic pose on a staircase, so you’re three feet taller than me. I never went to prom. Did you?”

“No,” Leia answers for him. “He didn’t.” 

He holds in another remark. 

“More stained glass?” Rey observes, looking up at the 50-foot ceilings and dramatic columns that ring the space. “I feel like I’m at church.”

“They do absolutely beautiful weddings in here,” Leia says, eyes locking onto Ben. 

He’s about to say something to make her stop when Kaydel sidles up behind Leia and whispers something in her ear. 

“Potential investor at three o’clock,” she explains, handing her assistant her empty glass. “Rey, you’ll sit next to me at dinner?”

She doesn’t wait for a response, heading off toward her target. 

\---

There’s a late dinner that Ben finds unsurprisingly average. There’s an endless presentation about the exciting upcoming exhibitions at the Historical Society. There’s a brief performance by John Legend. He knows this is supposed to be the impressive part, but Ben compulsively checks his watch. (“You’re telling me they couldn’t have used the John Legend money on actual historic preservation?” Rey whispers.) 

Before he plays his last song, he invites everyone to the dance floor. _Because of course this has to go on longer_. In a move that Rey surely could not miss, Leia shifts forward to give Ben a Look. He doesn’t turn his head, just works his jaw, willfully ignoring her. If his mother could somehow kick him under the table with Rey sitting between them, she would have. 

Before Leia can utter any embarrassing verbal prompts, Lando materializes behind them and extends his hand to Rey. 

“I requested this one,” he says. “John owes me a favor.” 

“You— _what_?” She hesitates for a moment, but takes his hand. “I don’t dance.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten the office holiday party two years ago.” 

“I _knew_ there would be dancing. Liar,” Rey whispers to Ben, as she rises out of her seat with a sigh. He faintly hears her ask something about Chrissy Teigen as they head toward the dance floor. 

Ben watches the other couples awkwardly file onto the dance floor like they’re begrudgingly attending their niece’s wedding reception in Ronkonkoma, instead of listening to a Grammy winner perform. 

John Legend launches into a slow cover of “Open Your Eyes.” 

“Big miss there, kiddo,” Leia points out.

“Totally blew that,” Kaydel adds. To Leia.

Ben watches as Lando does his best to lead. Rey truly isn’t much of a dancer, but she seems to be having fun despite her earlier protest. 

“I don’t know what either of you are talking about.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Leia notes, dividing her attention between Ben and her buzzing phone. “Just like your father.” 

Ben huffs at the way his mother can push his buttons at the worst moments. But he still observes the dance floor, working his jaw again, wondering if Lando really did request this particular song. After another vigorous spin, they slow down and Rey catches his eye and mouths “help.” Or, at least, he thinks she does. 

“Why are you still sitting here?” 

Ben isn’t sure if Leia actually says it, or his subconscious imagines her saying it, or Kaydel throws her voice and says it. Maybe nobody says it. But he finds himself pushing back from the table.

When he gets within a few feet of Lando and Rey, it occurs to him that no one actually uses the phrase, “May I cut in?” Or do they? _Do people cut in in real life?_ But it turns out that Ben doesn’t need to say anything because Lando has a sixth sense about these things. 

“Selina!” he shouts, opening his arms in invitation to an attractive young woman in an orange dress. “Don’t tell me you’re not dancing tonight!” He smoothly nudges Rey in front of Ben with his left arm while pulling the woman in orange onto the dance floor with a dramatic flourish. 

There’s a awkward beat or two before Ben remembers why he’s standing there. 

“Good timing,” Rey says. 

“That would be a first for us.”

And then they get confused about where to put their hands. Somehow Rey’s left arm ends up around Ben’s waist, while his right hand is on her left shoulder. They probably look like junior high school students being forced to partner dance in gym class.

“I’m used to dancing with a woman,” Rey points out. “What’s your excuse?” 

They manage to get it sorted, but Leia and Kaydel are cackling with delight from their table. Ben tries not to notice this, or the fact that Leia is clearly positioning her phone to take a candid photo. 

He’d mind _more_ if he wasn’t enjoying the fringe benefit of dancing, which is that the correct position of his right hand is against Rey’s lower back. 

Neither of them say anything. It’s probably the least they’ve spoken in each other’s presence in the last two months. And it’s not because they’re focusing on dancing, since they’re basically just shuffling back and forth. Ben doesn’t notice until now that eye contact is more comfortable when Rey wears very high heels. She’s the perfect height now. In fact, if he just tilted his head down slightly... 

“What are you thinking about?” she asks, breaking the silence. “You’re ruminating.”

He grasps at anything. 

“This feels like a wedding reception,” he offers. 

_What a strange fucking thought to have out of nowhere._ She seems to stiffen.

He looks around at the older couples that surround them, wondering at what moment they knew they’d found their person. When they weighed the risk of failure against the possibility of forever. 

He wonders if Rey felt that way when she got married. Or when she’ll let herself feel that way about someone again. 

It’s selfish to want more from this. But Ben has always been selfish. And Rey isn’t. 

“Hey,” she says as the song winds down, derailing his train of thought. “Can we get out of here before midnight?”

“Did you actually want to watch the _Twilight Zone_ marathon? We could go back to the loft.”

“No, I just...I don’t want to be here for the countdown. With everyone kissing. And..I mean, if we did it, I’d feel like we’re in a fishbowl.” She nods toward Leia and Kaydel. “And my boss isn’t exactly subtle.” They look across the dance floor to see Lando dipping the orange dress woman with a dramatic flourish to end the song.

“The man does have a cape closet.”

“I didn’t feel bad about the whole New Year’s kiss thing, until I remembered that we’re in a crowd of couples. And I won’t be getting one. And Leia keeps talking about weddings. And I'm thinking about mine. Sorry, I’m...” 

She looks pained. He pushes aside the uncomfortable truth that dancing with him apparently flipped her mood and runs a quick geographical survey of their current location.

“Let’s get some air.”

 

——————-

 

“I’ve never been up here at night,” Rey says, stumbling a little on her heels. “It’s actually really dark.”

“There’s a good spot up here, not that much further.” They continue to make their way down the path that meanders and loops through the park. She can faintly hear the sounds of cars and the occasional reveler on the street, but even though the trees are bare, they create an effective barrier from the usual cacophony. 

“Did you come here at night growing up or something? I get lost up here in broad daylight.”

“The Ramble?” He laughs as they cross Oak Bridge. “In the dark? Uh, no, when I was a kid it was still mostly known for gay cruising. Before the internet. Now it’s mostly bird watchers.”

“Guess it’s not the most popular place at eleven-fifty p.m. on New Year’s Eve. Thank God.”

“Just around this curve,” Ben says heading down a slope and to the right, toward something that looks like a stone wall with a narrow arch, nestled between two giant rock outcrops. 

Rey feels her shoe slip down the pavement, now slick with a thin coast of frost. It’s a pathetic little hill under normal circumstances, but with these torturous stilettos that have absolutely no tread....

“Ben!” she shouts. “I can’t get down the hill in these shoes.”

He turns around, sizing up her predicament.

“The hill? You mean this gentle slope that's graded for wheelchair access?”

“Well these shoes aren’t made for anything useful. Just give me your hand or something.” 

Ben sighs, as if this is the biggest possible chore, and heads back up to where she’s stranded. She reaches out her hand, but he walks past it, bends down and places his shoulder at her hip, and lifts her off the ground and over his shoulder in one fluid motion. 

“Wh-what the hell are you doing?!” she yelps, smacking him on the back, trapped in some kind of humiliating fireman carry. 

“You have no idea how many lumberjack presses and cleans I’ve been doing,” he says, heading down the slope. “Finally there’s a reason.”

“Showing off?” 

“I wish I had known the reason would be so stupid.”

“Shut up. And watch where you put your hand, I can feel everything through this coat.” 

“Such a strong, smart young woman...felled by a pair of shoes. Watch your head.” He ducks down a little, passing through the arch to the other side. 

“It’s not my head I’m worried about.” 

He takes his damn time setting her back on her feet. 

“I guess it’s hard to see now, but it’s nice during the day,” he says, as she tries to readjust her dress beneath her coat. “Very picturesque if there aren’t many tourists hanging around taking selfies. There’s a boarded up cave somewhere around here.”

“Do you mind if I…?” She retrieves a joint from her little clutch. “Something about being in a room full of middle-aged people reminded me of my marriage.”

He shakes his head and brushes some barely perceptible dirt off a large boulder before taking a seat.

Rey flicks her lighter and slowly creates a cherry, rolling the joint between her fingers over the flame, pausing to take a small drag.

“You want?” She takes a long hit before offering it to him. 

His gears turn for a few seconds, but he accepts. Rey leans against the arch, watching him draw the smoke in and take another inhale. _Not a novice, then._

“Where, exactly, do you stand on marijuana decriminalization?” 

He exhales. 

“Prohibition is a crime against the individual’s right.”

“Yeah, never mind the rate at which black men are incarcerated, let’s talk rugged individualism.” She retrieves the joint.

“Heaven forbid I see more than one side to a issue.” 

There’s a retort on the tip of her tongue, but she takes another hit instead. 

“Your mom invited me to brunch next weekend.”

“God, you don’t have to have to do that. I’ll get you out of it.” 

“I like her. She’s kind of a badass.” _Yet another thing not to mention to Han._ She passes the joint back to him.“But are you sure she thinks I’m just helping you with the loft? She was pretty much running a visual analysis on the child-bearing capabilities of my hips.”

“She knows we’re friends,” he insists. “She’s a Jewish mother. Sometimes that overtakes the enlightened badass. It’s genetic, she can’t help it.”

“It’s nice. I mean, I can see how that would be comforting. To have someone want that for you.” He takes a breath in like he’s about to argue, but she heads it off. “I know, I know, I don’t understand, she was a terrible monster, whatever. I get it. I mean I don’t _get it_ , but I get it.” 

“She wasn’t. I mean, we had our moments.” He takes a second hit and passes it back. “Fuck, do you really think I hate my entire family?”

“No.”

Ben leans back against the outcrop, closing his eyes, and looking relaxed. She doesn’t remember him ever looking relaxed before. Rey takes one more hit and gently stubs it out, before taking a seat next to him. The tree branches obstruct the view to the stars, but it’s a clear night, so it’s good enough. 

“How did you know you wanted to get married?” he asks, keeping his eyes closed. 

_The big questions after two hits_? She sighs, taking her time, not really wanting to revisit this.

“I guess I felt...wanted. By this person I admired. It was amazing, honestly—belonging to someone. When it was good, I was so sure it was the right thing. And then one day I didn’t belong to anyone.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been sure about anything in my entire life.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. You’re not the one sitting here, still grieving someone who discarded you like trash. That’s what happens when you think you’re sure of something, but you’re also an idiot.”

She keeps talking before Ben can counter her. 

“I hate that I’m still wondering what my ex-wife is doing tonight. I hate that I hate her _and_ I miss her _and_ I know she doesn’t miss me. She doesn’t even hate me. I wish she hated me. It would be easier.”

“You’re not over it yet.” He says it like an observation, like it just dawns on him.

It’s quiet except for the occasional crunch of leaves or errant police siren in the distance. 

“Music?” she suggests, not wanting to risk Ben gently drifting off to sleep in Central Park in January. “You pick.”

He reaches in his pocket for his phone, sitting up a little bit. 

“Actually, just play the first track on Daily Mix 1,” she instructs before he can overthink it. 

“Ok, well, nothing says ‘Happy New Year’ like Elliott Smith.”

She puts her head in her hands, imagining Ben sitting in the loft listening to Elliott Smith albums often enough that they’re coming up _first_ in Spotify’s algorithm.

“Fine, choose something. Nothing depressing.”

It’s not long before the reverb-heavy opening notes of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” ring out through the iPhone speaker. 

“This is a perfect fucking song,” he says as the bass kicks in. “Just as Neil Finn intended it to be heard, on a speaker the size of a pebble.” 

“Hey,” Rey says, standing up and immediately feeling stiletto torture pain. “If we stand under the arch, the sound will bounce.” 

She takes a step forward and holds out her hand. He raises his eyes to hers, like he’s not completely sure if she’s being sincere. She opens her hand more. 

“Want to? I mean, we both suck at it and there’s no one to laugh now. And it’s a perfect song. Apparently.”

He takes her hand without further hesitation as she pulls him up to stand. 

“Just us now,” she says, as they step inside the narrow passageway. “And probably spiders.”

The curved walls amplify the sound, enveloping them in reverb, with just a trace of a the harsh light from a street lamp streaking across the ground.

They forego the hand/shoulder/waist combination they got wrong before. Rey puts her arms around his neck ( _because it’s cold_ ) and he puts his around her waist, with the phone in his hand gently poking into her back through the down coat. They sway from side to side, not really to the beat, but neither of them seem attuned to rhythm anyway.

“He puts so many extra syllables in his lyrics. I don’t know how he gets away with it.” 

“I never noticed.”

“Exactly.”

There’s nothing to look at except the stone walls, but they both pretend to find them visually intriguing.

“I forgot this was an old song. I guess I’ve heard the covers more than the original version.”

“Old?” He looks down at her. “I’m never sure if it’s melancholy or hopeful.”

“Can’t it be both?”

Rey rests her head against his chest. _Because it’s cold_. His pulse is pounding erratically. 

“It’s the weed,” he says, apparently reading her mind. “Makes my heart race sometimes.”

“Oh.” Her voice is muffled

“I don’t really smoke anymore. Because of the anti-depressants.” 

She snaps her head up at that.

“Shit. I didn’t think of that. Are you feeling okay?” 

“It’s fine. I think. I feel good. So far.” 

Rey relaxes slightly, wondering if it’s wrong that she considers weed her anti-depressant. Not that it’s working that well. 

“It’s almost midnight,” she points out.

She’s shivering. Yes, that’s why she nestles into him: she comes from the desert heat and she’s always cold here. Even with a sleeping bag coat.

Ben pulls her in closer and tries to wrap his coat around both of them. It doesn’t quite work, but the gesture is nice. 

“I can’t wait for this terrible year to end,” she says, looking up at him. “But I’m glad I met you again” 

He swallows and nods.

“Becoming friends was the best thing to happen to me in a long time.”

He works his jaw but doesn’t say anything in response. 

“When we didn’t talk...a few weeks ago? I lost my damn mind.”

“You did?”

She hears herself sounding sloppier, the pot and the alcohol wresting control of the wheel.

“I thought we fucked things up. Like, permanently.” 

“No.” 

Friends don’t look at each other like that, eyes glancing down to her lips every so often. 

“Because this friendship is so important to me. You have no idea. It’s kind of the best thing to happen to me in a long time.”

“You said that already.”

“I did?”

_Shit_. They’re probably both fucked up now. The arch seems to be rocking back and forth like a seesaw. She puts her head back down on his chest and closes her eyes. That helps. Neil Finn sings about counting the steps to the door of your heart.

“The drums only kick in on the last verse. I didn’t notice that the first thirty times I heard this song.”

The fuzzy sounds of revelers on Central Park West become louder and more defined. Directly above them, a noisy group stops on the bridge running over the arch.

“It’s almost midnight,” she says, lifting her head.

“You said that already, too.”

“Are we going to...you know....” She stops and exhales. “New Years kiss? With the countdown?”

“Yes.”

They can hear the chanting from the buildings across the street. “Ten! …. Nine!—”

“Like, a peck on the cheek or…?”

“No.”

“Eight!...Seven!—”

“So, quickly, but on the lips?”

“No.” 

“Six!”

“I just want to know—” 

“Five!”

“—So we don’t each do something awkward, because—”

“Four!”

“—It’s kind of a one-shot deal.”

“Three!”

“It is.”

Rey feels his right hand move up her spine all the way to the back of her head, fingers twisting slightly in her hair. They stop the half-hearted swaying, even though the song isn’t over. 

“Two!”

She’s reasonably sure the prickly sensation running along the back of her neck is from the wind kicking up. It’s not because he tugs her head back a little bit and looks at her in that way that makes her feel completely exposed, despite the fact that she’s wrapped in a thick layer of down. She closes her eyes. 

There must be a “One!” but neither of them seem to hear it. 

Her head tilts to the right, and she feels Ben’s lower lip graze hers, that tiny amount of contact enough to make something ignite in her chest. _Yes._ Rey grabs at his lapels, pulling him closer, parting, opening, inviting. He obliges, with a trace of caution, pressing in again as her heart pounds. _More._ His lips are soft and tentative against hers, the friction warming them against the winter air. He pulls back for a moment, just far enough to search her face. His expression is resolute, but he’s waiting for something from her. Rey lets out a shaky exhale and nods rapidly. 

He doesn’t move yet. _Please._ She’s about to tug at his coat again, when he suddenly lowers his head, moving just past her left cheek. 

Her breath hitches as Ben’s nose brushes behind her ear, followed by his lips. He pulls her hair again, this time to the right for better access to her neck. Her whole body shivers as his mouth passes over a thousand tiny nerve endings, all of them firing at once. Her stomach tightens. _How is he doing this?_ Why does he have this innate sense of where and how she wants to be touched? 

He takes his time, spurred on by little whimpers that she can’t hold in, moving lazily down her neck and kissing along her jawline until they come face to face again. 

This is the first point at which they could— _should_ —stop. But they don’t. 

Possibly because Rey murmurs his name just before she pulls his head down, so their lips meet again. He doubles down by taking her face in his hands. Some element of his restraint snaps as he slides his tongue into her mouth with an urgency that leaves her slightly breathless. _Needy._ She feels pliant, open, ready to give him anything. That’s the second point at which they don’t stop.

The third is when his hands find their way under her puffy coat, meandering down the bare skin of her back, and then slipping beneath the the silky fabric of the dress. He palms her ass and she can’t help moaning into his mouth and if he would just push her back into that wall and... 

There’s a part of Rey’s logical mind that’s still working and that part is throwing caution tape all over this encounter. But they don’t stop here, either. 

Because something is incredibly _right_ about all of it. Like she’s finally sinking down into a deep pool of dark water, unafraid to drown. 

She’s reaching up to run her fingers through his hair (something she’s always thought about doing, if she’s being honest), when a startingly loud CRACK snaps both of them out of their shared feverish haze. They both step back, Rey bumping against the back wall. The thing that makes them stop turns out to be a wayward firecracker being thrown off the bridge above the arch.

They stare at each other for what seems like a full minute, but probably isn’t. 

In that minute, or however long it is, Rey’s logical mind begins to feel very afraid of drowning. 

It reminds her that sex—the kind that means something—always ruins the friendship. 

That she’s not ready for a real relationship, either—the kind this would have to be. 

That Ben might be ready. 

That he wants everything.

And he’s already frustrated.

That he might get angry and disappear from her life. 

Because he’s done it before, to his own family. 

Her throat is burning with the urge to explain why the kiss wasn’t the start of some epic romance. That they can just stay right where they are. She opens her mouth, but she doesn’t trust what might come out. So she takes out her phone. And types. 

**Rey:** I’m too scared of this. I can’t.  
  


Ben’s phone lights up. He pulls it from his pocket. He reads.

She closes her eyes, bracing herself for an outburst, but it doesn’t come. 

Her phone buzzes.

**Ben:** I just wanted you to have a New Year’s kiss.   
  


“Oh,” is all she manages, all that lawyerly rhetorical skill apparently buried under the combination of mind-altering substances, adrenaline, and unfulfilled need. 

“It seemed important to you.”

She blinks. 

“So that was...” She furrows her brow. “That was just a ‘Happy New Year’ kiss?”

“Yes.” His voice is firm, his face tells another story. “It doesn’t have to be anything.” 

She takes a deep breath. There’s probably some pithy way to resolve the awkwardness of the moment, but instead, what comes out is, “Is that why you shaved?”

Ben shakes his head. 

“Didn’t plan that. You just lucked out.” He turns toward the incline that leads back to Central Park West. “Do you want to walk back? Get the train?” He heads through the arch, not waiting for her. 

Rey stays put for a few more seconds, wondering if he might turn around and come back of his own accord. But he doesn’t. So she nods to herself, pushes off the wall and hurries after him. _Maybe this is fine_. 

And, of course, as soon as she gets to the spot where the hill starts to rise, her beautiful, impractical stiletto slips on the pavement again. _Shit_. She tries turning to the side and taking tiny steps, feeling ridiculous. She slips back down. _Why?_

“Ben!” she shouts. “I can’t get up the hill.”

“I guess you’ll just have to live there,” he calls over his shoulder.

“What!” she yells. And then she waits.

He walks extra slowly on his way to come back for her. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, are you still there? 
> 
> If you’re upset (and I know a few people were already upset last week), please know that it’s going to be okay. We’re not far off the next “turning point” at all. (I’m already writing that, ahem, “turning point” so please trust.)
> 
> Hey, [I made a map](https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=15aicyearUQ7K_Aq79HXp0QKTa2iBNILY&hl=en&usp=sharing) of some important Doing the Unstuck locations! Plz note that the Ramble _is_ super close to the Historical Society. 
> 
> So, [Open Your Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6-eYpP1Xio) is a strange early 80s song that always reminds me of this story. In fact, I almost titled the whole story Open Your [Damn] Eyes. The whole song is like “hey girl, wake the f*ck up!” I also acknowledge that it is not a slow dance song, especially not the John Legend cover. Just pretend he played it like a ballad and that he was well-compensated by the NYHS. (PS, I wouldn’t be surprised if John Legend has played that kind of gig. I used to help with those kinds of things all the time as an “annoyed young woman with an iPad” working in museums and it rang true.)
> 
> Don’t Dream It’s Over is just a personal thing for me because my BF is a huge Neil Finn fan (there’s literally a Crowded House poster next to a Star Wars poster on our wall). AND, the amazing [animal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animal/pseuds/animal) referenced it at the end of a recent chapter of Mountain Springs High, so I know for sure it was meant to be some kind of Rey/Ben song. [Also, I think I subconsciously threw in @animal references like the lamps and even some of the phrasing, here and there.] I cycled through about a dozen different (and ridiculous) songs for this part, but I’m happy with where I landed.
> 
> Did you catch the cameo by [one of my favorite artists](https://selunchen.tumblr.com/), in the orange dress? 
> 
> [Speaking of cameos, don’t forget to reblog [this post](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/post/179133545357/doing-the-unstuck-ch-10-your-chance-to-be) for a chance to be written into a future chapter.]
> 
> I don’t know when the next update will be and I don’t want to give a day because then I get messages when I inevitably don’t meet my own deadlines. The next few weeks are fairly insane for me at work, so I may need to just write without the pressure of getting a specific chapter up on a particular day. 
> 
> Your comments are so...just...very special to me. Have I given you some pain with this chapter? Please yell at me. <3


	12. No Sleep Till Ditmars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone converges on an ill-conceived singles mixer, where Poe pushes Rey to publicly admit that she is not "just friends" with Ben. Disaster ensues.
> 
> We see the same evening from three points of view. Rashomon!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is weird experiment, I’ll warn you right now. I mostly write this as a creative outlet and to challenge myself, so sometimes I just do weird shit that might be very unsatisfying by normal fic standards. This took me a really long time to write. I actually wrote it many times and I will never write anything this way again. I’m still not convinced it works at all and I should have had like four betas but instead I’m just posting it like a monster. 
> 
> So here goes: this chapter is supposed to be like Rashomon -- showing an event from multiple points of view. Yep, it’s a little tribute to the flashbacks in TLJ, but it’s also an idea I had after I had written different aspects of the scene from a million POVs, and it quickly spun out of control. It was really interesting (for me) to think about how the same scene would be perceived by different people. I hope it makes sense and isn't too redundant. 
> 
> So, the order I intend is the way I have it here. There are a couple scenes up front and then there’s the same scene, from Rey’s POV, Rose’s POV and Ben’s POV. Some stuff gets repeated, some stuff gets abbreviated, and no one is a 100% reliable narrator. However, you could try to read it in another order! I dunno!
> 
> PS - as always my favorite thing to write is a good swirling Ben Solo inner thoughts monologue. 
> 
> Although I’m posting this without letting another soul read it (again, like a monster), several people directly or indirectly helped me work out these ideas: [ selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen) (who actually workshopped this chapter with me last week and sent me in a much more interesting direction than I had planned) and [ bless_my_circuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bless_my_circuits/pseuds/bless_my_circuits) whose head canons are so eerily accurate that I nearly changed things just so she wouldn’t be so right about what I had planned.

WEDNESDAY

Rey lounges sideways in the armchair, a _New Yorker_ from four weeks ago in her lap, lazily scrolling through her Spotify playlists. She’d planned to take the day off to help Han refinish the bar top at Maz’s. But she’d woken up feeling tired and a bit nauseous, and not particularly like assisting members of the Solo family with DIY projects. 

She spends a good part of the morning poking around Fetlife. She also moves the age slider on Tinder up a few notches. And then back down. And then back up again. And then quits the app. 

Around three in the afternoon Rey jolts awake when there’s an insistent knock on the door. 

“Hang on!” she shouts, stumbling over to the door and checking the peep hole. 

_Shit._

Han’s holding a styrofoam soup container. She really does feel sick to her stomach as she undoes the deadbolt. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Maz,” he grunts, nodding at the container.

“I thought you were a silent partner. She has you doing deliveries?”

“You’re welcome.” He hands her the soup, looking at something behind her shoulder. 

“Thanks.” She doesn’t move. 

“You put up a tree?” he asks, pushing past her on the left, heading toward the paper snowflake-covered Fraser Fir. 

Rey still doesn’t turn around. She stares into the hallway, holding her breath, doing a quick mental calculation about how long it will take Han to notice his old furniture. 

It seems to take too long, but when she finally turns around, she sees it’s because he just looks confused. Maybe stunned. 

She didn’t rehearse this. There’s no pithy comment in her back pocket. 

Han holds his hand out to the armchair and runs his hand over the soft, aged leather. He still says nothing. 

“I have to tell you something,” she says. _It’s a start._

He looks at her, still trying to puzzle out why he’s now looking at a chair he hasn’t seen in over fifteen years. 

“Where did you get this?”

“I met Ben. Again.” He furrows his brow. “We’ve been, hanging out. Sometimes.”

“Hanging out,” he repeats. “With Ben.” The name comes off his tongue like he hasn’t uttered it in a long time.

She nods. “We’re...kind of friends.” She looks down. “I didn’t know how to tell you, so I—I put it off.”

“For how long?”

“Um. A couple months, I guess? He’s cleaning out the loft and he offered me some furniture. Just until I buy some new stuff.”

“Cleaning out the loft, huh? You mean throwing away his family’s shit without a God damn care in the world?”

“He didn’t throw it away! It’s right here. Do you want your old furniture? You can have it.” But she knows that has nothing to do with it. “I’m sorry for keeping this from you—”

But he’s already moving toward the door. 

“Kid, you have no idea what he put us through...”

“I do, though.” She takes a step toward him. “Han, I know him. I think if you both just—”

“He sold the Falcon, Rey. Right after I signed it over to him. I thought it was some kind of legacy. Something to prove that it didn’t matter how much we fought. He was still my son. I spent my whole life restoring it. We had family memories in there. Me and Leia.”

“I know it was—”

“He _sold_ it. Didn’t even get a fair price for it. And he turned around and gave the money to Snoke.”

“What?”

“Usually the devil pays _you_ for your soul.”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Since you know him so well, why don’t you ask him?” 

Han opens the door and walks out before Rey can formulate a response. 

\------------

THURSDAY

When he saunters into Untitled in the obnoxious red Adidas track suit, Ben can’t help but take some small pleasure in Hux’s look of disdain. 

“This was supposed to be a discreet lunch,” Hux says, placing his phone on the table with a haughty sniff. 

Giving precisely zero fucks about discretion, Ben pulls the chair out, dragging it along the concrete floor, and sits down, carefully maintaining his posture so that there’s no question as to which one of them is tallest. 

“In such a covert location," Ben says. "Was the bench in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree unavailable?” The restaurant is attached to the Whitney—and therefore crawling with tourists—and the exterior walls are all glass. They might as well be outside.

“They know me here. I never get papped.”

“I’m positive you don’t.”

A waitress in a clean, white oxford shirt and long apron comes over for the drink orders. 

“I’ll have a Manhattan,” Ben says, “but here’s how I want it: Rittenhouse rye with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth and a lemon twist instead of a cherry.”

“A shot of mezcal, a shot of Campari, and a shot of sweet vermouth, mixed with ice and then strained into a different glass. With an orange twist.”

They stare at each other for a few seconds. 

“I’m not sticking around for lunch, so get to the point.”

“Very well. As I’m sure you know, my show is being fast tracked. I’m slated to go head-to-head with Maddow next month.”

Ben exhales, but doesn’t let his face show any kind of feeling about this. 

“Frankly, the team CNN has assembled is...subpar.” He leans in slightly. “Useless cunts, the lot of them.”

“That’s quite an indictment, coming from someone whose greatest professional achievement is openly weeping on _Australian Survivor_.”

“Pardon? I _won Survivor_ , you fuckwit,” he sneers.

“You have two minutes to explain what I’m doing here.”

“The opportunity to join Team Hux. Quietly, of course.”

“Team Hux?” For the first time in days, he actually laughs.

“I’m well aware of your limitations,” Hux continues, undeterred. “The non-compete. It’s in effect for years. Shame you didn’t have my lawyer. As such...nothing on camera, no official credit, no entering the building. Strictly under the table. You send material in through some secure means, I pay you in cash. Like a—”

“No.”

“From what I hear, you could use the income.” He twists his mouth into a sick little grin. “Or are you living on Mummy’s fortune?”

Ben pushes his chair back. 

“Now, now, Solo. Calm the fuck down,” Hux says with an annoyed little sigh. “I have one more minute and then you’re free to throw a tantrum. Just like the old days.” 

Ben says nothing, but feels himself breathing hard, just on the edge of an outburst. 

“I’m not pushing that fucking agenda anymore, not for Snoke. Not for you.”

“There _is_ no agenda. It’s CNN for fuck’s sake. I just need some trenchant remarks. Something to close every show, a two-minute monologue, perhaps? Your knack for words with my accent? Bloody brilliant.”

“Ghostwriting.” 

“If you prefer.” 

It’s a terrible idea. Just a half step or two away from backsliding. But the opportunity to do something—anything—that he’s actually _good_ at...there’s something tempting in it. 

The waitress brings their drinks. Ben downs his in one giant gulp and pushes back from the table. 

“Go off and have a think,” Hux offers. “You have my number. And don’t ever wear that ridiculous thing in my presence again, my fucking day is ruined.”

\------------

Rey  
  
**Rey:** Sup.  
  
So, Rose is throwing a singles night fundraiser tomorrow and she’s a little short of the goal.  
  
**Ben:** Is there an “and” in there?  
  
**Rey:** Can you come? $20 donation. For a good cause.  
  
**Ben:** What cause?  
  
**Rey:** Um. Working Families Party?   
  
**Ben:** You want me to show up at a singles event to raise money for the new communist party?  
  
So they can find other communists to produce more Working Families Party members?  
  
Oh and you have to bring another single person. It’s up here at the beer garden.   
  
Pierogies?   
  
**Ben:** What makes you think I know another single person?  
  
**Rey:** I’m sure you’ll figure something out.   
  
You never know, we could both meet the loves of our lives at this event.  
  


\-----------

\-----------

\-----------

FRIDAY

“Just let me hear it. Why are you keeping this from me?” Poe reaches around Rey to try and grab her phone as they walk up 31st Street. 

“I don’t want this to be your first impression,” she says dodging his hand, trying to drop the phone back in the pocket of her puffer coat.

“If what you’re saying is true, it’s _exactly_ the kind of impression I want.”

She sighs heavily, her breath forming a cloud in the cold. She unlocks the phone and scrolls to find the saved file. 

“You _downloaded_ it? Oh shit…” 

“Only God can judge me,” she insists, sticking her index finger in his face, before handing over the device with her other hand. 

He holds it to his ear, stepping to the right, still walking, but remaining just out of earshot. 

After about twenty seconds, he stops.

_Is he closing his eyes?_

“Jesus fucking Christ, Rey.” 

“Okay, okay,” she tries to grab the phone back, “Give it. That’s enough. You get the point.” 

Poe dances away from her, practically jogging with the phone to his ear.

“This is Kylo Ren?”

“His name is Ben.” 

“The First Order guy who looks like 90s era Keanu if you stretched his face vertically?” 

“No, he—” she thinks about it for a second “—well, okay, yes. That’s him.”

“Does he know there’s a sizable population of gay men in this city who want to—in the words of our lord and savior, Chuck Tingle—‘fuck him gay’? Or hate fuck him gay, more accurately.”

“They do?” Rey feels her stomach drop for some reason. 

“Yeah, and they haven’t even heard this.”

“Do _not_ bring it up, Poe.” 

“Well if _you’re_ not going to fuck him—” Rey reaches behind him for the phone and he uses his _slight_ height advantage to shift it to the other hand. “—I mean, he’s not my type but if he blindfolded me—”

“Shut up.”

“Every morning, huh?”

“No!” She makes a hard lunge, finally grabbing the phone back. “Not _every_.”

“Okay, okay. God, I don’t think I’ve seen you blush like this before.”

“It’s the cold.”

“Remember just last month when you were ‘growing’ because of this platonic friendship?” He laughs to himself. “It’s okay, I’m gonna help you out tonight.”

“Do _not_ help me. I took ninety minutes of jiu jitsu last year and I will not hesitate to grapple your ass.” 

“It’s not _my_ ass you want to grapple,” he says under his breath. 

She stays silent, not wanting to serve up any more softballs. The voicemail is her one indulgence. Thank Christ she hasn’t mentioned the iPod. 

It’s still sitting in the neatly wrapped box, hidden away in one of her dresser drawers. _Not_ her underwear drawer. 

She has not listened to it. 

She has no idea what might be on it. 

As long as it remains in the box, she is safe.

It’s Schrödinger’s iPod. 

Since the drawer is closed, it’s still platonic.

\--

Ben is waiting outside Bohemian Hall when Rey and Poe walk up to the entrance. Because when is he not early or perfectly on time for the most casual of social events? She hasn’t seen him in person since New Year’s, and when they’ve texted, they haven’t mentioned what she’s now mentally referring to as _getting carried away_. 

“Hi!” she says, a little too brightly, greeting him with a quick, awkward hug. Poe’s comment about men wanting to fuck him stubbornly sticks in her mind. And is there something weird about embracing him when they’re both wearing the same winter coats as when they _got carried away_? When she steps back, he has a funny look on his face. _Too much?_

Of course, the look could be because Poe is standing behind her, grinning like the Cheshire Cat and _oh God this is a situation that can’t end well_. 

“Poe Dameron,” he says, thrusting his hand out and giving Ben the same crooked grin he gives to the guys Rey watches him pick up at Therapy. “I’ve heard so much of you.”

Rey rolls her eyes, hoping Ben doesn’t notice the strange turn of phrase. But then, there hasn’t really been a moment in this brief exchange when he hasn’t looked some degree of confused.

“Did you track down an unattached friend?” she asks.

“He should be here in a little bit.”

“A ‘he?’ Are you trying to set me up?” 

“Believe me, I’m not.” She swears he says, “You’re welcome,” but she can’t quite hear because Poe inserts himself between them and opens the door. 

“Tell him to meet us in there,” he insists, herding them in. “I have so many questions for you.” 

Rey is careful to avoid what she can only assume is a bewildered look from Ben.

It feels like home inside. It’s always been more of a summer destination for Rey, but the indoor section has its own unpretentious charm, with wood paneling and absolutely no attempt at decor aside from posters. It smells like spilled beer and grilled sausage and comforting brown food. It’s one of the last truly old school places in a neighborhood that’s rapidly becoming all the things that Ben always complains about. 

“I know it’s not exactly the Biergarten at the Standard, or something,” she says to Ben, well-aware that fried cheese probably isn’t his thing. But he doesn’t have time to respond, because Poe pulls him over to the bar.

From across the room, Rey sees Rose in conversation with a loud-talking bearded man. She’s listening and nodding with just enough attention so that the man keeps pontificating (typical) but she catches Rey’s eye and they carry on a quick nonverbal conversation. 

Rose nods her head slightly toward Ben and gives a nearly imperceptible shrug. _(Why?)_

Rey shrugs back and mouths “Single.”

Rose raises her eyebrows. (Is it a dubious look? It’s hard to tell which conversation that reaction belongs to.) She moves her eyes over to a table off to one side of the room where Finn sits at a table that already has a pitcher of beer and numerous brown food options on it.

“Look at you with the spread,” Rey says, pulling out a chair. “This is all for me?”

“Oh no, we have more coming for you. I told them to boil every pierogie.”

“You know me so well.” She sits. “So who did you have to con into coming to this party?”

“I snagged one of my co-workers.” He nods in the direction of a woman who appears stuck talking to some douchebag at the bar.

“You’re probably going to owe her one after this,” Rey says, pouring herself a glass from the pitcher. “Is she at least a member of the Working Families Party?”

“She’s Canadian.”

“Shit. She can't even vote here? You know, I’m getting the sense that a singles event for a political party based around the idea of already having a family to support was a bad idea,” Rey observes. 

Finn rubs the back of his head.

“Yeah, maybe don’t mention that to Rose.” 

“Should I do the thing where I pretend to be her friend and rescue her?” Rey dips part of a giant pretzel into a mystery sauce. 

“Actually, I think your good friend Ben took care of it.”

She turns around. Ben is standing close, like _really_ close to Finn’s friend and now that she’s turned the other way, Rey can see that she’s pretty.

 _Which is fine_. Why shouldn’t this Canadian teacher have an adorable little meet-cute on her night out like a Hallmark Christmas movie starring Candace Cameron Bure? 

Rey shoves the pretzel into her mouth. 

“Maybe she’ll owe _me_ the favor,” Finn says as Poe and Ben return to the table with more pitchers. 

“We’ve been here two minutes and Ben already got a number,” Poe says in an obnoxiously chipper tone of voice, setting down a full pitcher before taking a seat to her right.

Rey finishes chewing forces herself to look at Ben. “Didn’t I tell you Poe is a great wingman?” She digs another piece of pretzel back in the sauce, somewhat more aggressively than necessary.

“Oh, I dunno Rey. It wasn’t me. I think it was his _voice_.” 

She stops just short of shoving the pretzel in her mouth. 

“You know, I think I need a _drink_ drink. Be right back.”

\--

She sits at the bar for twenty minutes nursing a Long Island Iced Tea. 

By the time she gets back to the table, slightly buzzed, there’s a haughty-looking red-haired man in a dark suit sitting in her chair and smirking at Poe. She takes a seat next to Ben and digs back into the brown food, noting that the Long Island Iced Tea might have been a mistake. 

Dust Daddy  
  
**Rey:** Who’s the ginger? He looks familiar.  
  
Was he on Survivor?  
  
**Ben:** His name is Hux. He’s the only single person I know. Sorry.  
  
**Rey:** Is your friend into men?  
  
**Ben:** I can honestly say I never thought about it.  
  
And he’s not my friend. He’s an acquaintance who owes me a favor.   
  
**Ben:** Ok, well just sayin. Poe has torrented A LOT of Australian reality shows.  
  


“Rowing is to people in 2018 what spinning was to people in 2016,” the ginger declares. “I read that somewhere on the internet.” 

“I _wrote_ that!” Poe exclaims. 

“You wrote it? I’ve never quoted anyone before. Usually I just act like I came up with it.”

“I also wrote ‘kelp is the new kale.’” 

“Where did I read that? _The Atlantic_?”

“Yes! I mean, I tweeted it, and then someone wrote a whole article about it. But the idea was all mine.”

“Ben, didn’t you write a piece for _The Economist_ when you were at the University of Chicago?” Rey asks. No one seems to hear it.

“Well then,” Hux says, eyeing Poe. “I should look you up.” 

“Yes. You should. And down.”

“Those are the kinds of bon mots I’m looking for. You see, what I really see myself doing is hosting a panel show. Bring the format to the States the right way—”

“Really show off that winning personality,” Rey interjects. “You’re almost as likable as Piers Morgan.” He turns, eyes narrowing. “Almost.”

“Your girlfriend has quite a mouth on her, Solo,” Hux says, running his eyes back and forth between them. 

Rey chokes out some indignant rebuttal as she hears Ben warn, “Don’t talk about her mouth.” 

They lock eyes for a moment and it feels nice to be on the same side—like a team—even if it means they’re about to be ganged up on.

“Based on what I’ve heard so does he,” Poe says, finishing his drink and pouring the remainder of the pitcher into another glass. 

Rey shoots him a warning look. _Shit._ This has happened a few times with her and Poe. One of them takes a joke too far, they’ve both been drinking...

“Then again,” says Hux, “most straight people haven’t the faintest clue how to do anything exciting with their mouths.”

“Well, I’m not straight, and we’re not _together_. We’re friends,” Rey insists.

Hux rolls his eyes. “Bored now.”

“So do you leave those voicemails for _all_ your friends?” Poe asks, now focusing his attention on Ben. “Because I’d like to give you my number.”

Rey balls up her napkin and tosses it at Poe’s head, but she misses completely. Stupid Long Island Iced Tea. 

“What voicemails?” Hux asks, turning to Poe. 

Rey feels it coming before he utters the words, but it’s too late to leap over the table.

“The voicemail that Rey has been getting off to every morning for the last few weeks.”

She stares at Poe, almost disbelieving. Everyone seems to say something at the same time and she can’t distinguish the voices, except for one. Must be the accent. 

“ _Morning_?” exclaims Hux, suddenly interested now that there’s a slightly perverted detail in play. 

She and Poe are open about everything, but somehow this—in front of Hux, and Finn and Rose ( _oh God_ ), and Ben—crosses a line. And anyway, it _hasn’t_ been every morning; it helps her wake up, dammit. Why should she feel ashamed? Still, she feels Ben looking at her with a wild mix of confusion and...something else.

She huffs as Poe starts to speak again. 

“You’re not fooling anyone at this table.” His tone is matter of fact. “I’m just doing you both a favor and putting it out there in the open. I mean, just kiss already and get it over with.”

Hux mutters something but Rey only hears Poe’s alcohol-fueled challenge. _Fuck him and his inability to read the room. And why is every Goddamn person so eager to bury this friendship under the weight of a romantic relationship?_ The fresh wave of rage yanks the words out of her mouth, before she can vet them.

“We _already did_. And we’re still friends and everything’s cool,” she adds, glancing at Ben for a confirmation, to show a united front. “It was no big deal.”

But he just stares at her like he’s been punched. Finn and Poe seem to share the same, vaguely disappointed expression and Rose looks particularly stricken, which makes no sense. 

Rey’s stomach tightens into a firm knot in the silence, but she can’t back down. A little voice pings in her mind: _something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong._ She lowers her head, like a child who doesn’t understand how hiding works. 

It’s Hux who, mercifully, breaks the awkward moment. 

“I’m knackered,” he says, making a show of ordering an Uber. “Coming?” 

He looks at Poe, who takes one last drink, possibly _winks_ at the rest of the table and rises from his chair. 

“Counting on it.” 

Rey watches Poe sling his coat over his shoulder, as he follows Hux out. 

Rose gets up from the table, making some excuse about a merch table emergency. Ben’s phone buzzes and he spends a long time looking at what seems to be a short message. It’s probably Finn’s co-worker, texting her address.

Finn sighs and sits back in his chair. 

“So. Still friends, huh?”

Rey manages a nod. 

“As long as you’re both fine with that.”

“We’re going to brunch with his mom on Sunday,” Rey offers, as if spending _more_ time with Leia makes their relationship more platonic. 

“Well that’s great,” Finn says, rising and leaning over the table to speak more softly. “No offense, but this whole event and whatever the hell just happened made me so happy that I’m not single, that I’m going to find my wife and mess around with her in the bathroom out of gratitude for her existence.” 

For some reason, the low-key jealous feeling she’d had while crashing with them comes bubbling up to the surface as Rey watches Finn wind his arms around Rose in front of the t-shirt display, embracing her from behind. She blinks back the sting of tears, unsure if she’s on the verge of crying because she had that, or she wants that, or she can’t deal with that, or she already rejected that. 

Ben doesn’t say anything, but he’s still glancing at his phone. 

They sit in silence, watching Rose’s friends of friends, none of whom appear to be members of the Working Family Party, making awkward small talk. 

“You know what’s great?” she says, after what seems like an eternity passes and she feels her breathing normalize. “When you can sit with someone and not have to talk. It just shows how really comfortable you are.”

\------------

\------------

FRIDAY

The singles mixer hadn’t been Rose’s idea. The party leadership had insisted that branding was a problem: that young people, with time on their hands to canvass, might be turned off by the term “family.” Somewhere in the drama around Cynthia Nixon losing the primary, Rose had absent-mindedly agreed to organizing “something for the ‘working singles.’ ” 

Because she doesn’t have enough other shit to deal with…

But there’s nothing that Rose won’t do for a good cause, so she had dutifully texted every single un-coupled person in her contacts in the Tri-state area and asked them to bring a single friend. She’d called up Bohemian Hall and reserved one of the big rooms and negotiated a special deal on fried cheese. She had briefly thought about creating a fake Tinder profile and catfishing unsuspecting left-leaning singles into attending. 

Finn had talked her out of it. 

So after a full day of work, picking up Alice, waiting for the sitter, paying for an Uber so she could get up to Astoria on time with two giant boxes of Working Families Party merch, and playing hostess for the first embarrassingly quiet hour of the event, Rose really hadn’t been thrilled to see Rey walk in, not only with Poe (expected), but with Ben Solo (not expected). 

Scratch that. 

Rose isn’t surprised to see them together, not at that rate at which Rey both casually mentions him, while somehow managing to obfuscate the details of their “friendship.” She _is_ surprised at him showing up to an event for progressive activists, since he’s coined some choice terms for the WFP in the past. She’s also certain that his memes have been widely circulated in various WFP Slack channels...which is awkward, considering he was almost her brother-in-law.

Either he truly doesn’t give a shit about walking into spaces where he’s unwelcome or he’s completely unable to say “no” to Rey. It’s not until the even more conspicuous First Order refugee shows up, that she approaches the table for a chat.

\--

“Armitage Hugs, huh?” Dameron says. “That’s quite a name for American television.”

“It’s Hux. With an ‘x.’ Rhymes with fu—”

“We know what it rhymes with,” Rose says from behind them. “Ben, can you help me move a heavy box?”

“It’s like I’m not even sitting here,” Finn says.

“It’s up on a really high shelf,” Rose adds. “You relax. You're going to carry them out.”

She waits for Ben to get up and leads him over to a quieter back-of-house room where she’s storing the boxes of WFP merch. 

“You brought Armitage Hux to a Working Families event? Really?”

“He’s literally the only single person I know. And he signed with CNN. He’s very in touch with working families.” 

“Uh huh. A real man of the people. Like you?”

“I’m only here because I thought I was doing Rey—actually, _you_ —a favor.”

She raises her eyebrows. 

“Just, you know, don’t let him _mingle_ ,” she says, thinking of the impending disaster if a WFP leader spotted either of them at this event. And neither Ben nor Hux exactly blend. 

“Sure, because he’s normally so charming,” Ben says, taking a step outside into the hallway and glancing back into the bar area. “He’s talking to Dameron. I’m sure they’ll be at each other’s throats in three minutes and he’ll leave.”

“Okay, well, there’s something else,” she says, sitting on a tall stool and gesturing for Ben to take a seat on a smaller crate. He folds himself into an awkward sitting position, begrudgingly. “I still don’t understand what caused your sudden change of heart, or why you slandered people like me and Rey and Finn and Poe for years before you miraculously saw the light. But I’m not blind. I don’t know what’s going on between you, but I want to tell you something. I’ve known Rey for eight years—”

“So have I.”

“See, that’s just it. You really haven’t. You’ve known her for three months and two days. Do you know about her parents? About what it was like for her, growing up? The trauma she’s dealing with? The feelings of abandonment?”

“She told me a little bit.”

“Well it’s more than a little bit. Did you know that she’s never seen a therapist?”

“She mentioned you had suggested it.”

“The divorce obviously reopened a lot of those wounds. Maybe you’ve noticed.”

“Maybe I’ve _noticed_?” He looks almost affronted, like he would stand up if it was slightly easier to move from the crate. “Who do you think she’s been confiding in? Who’s been spending hours on the phone with her? Who helped make her apartment livable? Who did she spend Christmas and New Year’s with?” 

“I thought she spent Christmas at Maz’s with Han,” Rose can’t help but counter. 

“Is _that_ what this is about?”

Rose shakes her head and leans forward, resting her elbows on the black skirt she’s been wearing all day. She exhales, starting fresh.

“She’s never had a real relationship—what _I_ would call a real relationship—with someone her own age. An equal. Without some lopsided power dynamic due to age or seniority. Did you know that?” 

“I mean… Never?”

“Since I’ve known her...I dunno...it’s like she’s more comfortable looking up to someone rather than being an actual partner.”

“Okay…” Ben’s face is a strange mess of emotions that she can’t quite place.

Rose sighs and pulls at her wedding ring. 

“I had a crush on Finn when we first became friends. I tried so hard to make something happen. It’s like I was constantly available as his shoulder to cry on over other girls. It’s an awful feeling...just waiting for the other person to finally look at you that way. To acknowledge it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Really? You really want me to spell this out for you?”

Ben rolls his eyes.

“Fine. What changed?”

“After a couple months, I just let go of it. I focused harder on school, took a trip to Cuba, started dating other people. When we started hanging out again, I guess we just saw each other in a new way. And it didn’t seem like my life depended on every interaction. As Sting said, ‘If you love somebody, set them free.’ ” 

“That’s what you think is going on?”

“When you have a crush on a friend, it’s not really a friendship. There’s always going to be an imbalance. And until you both want the same thing, you’re always going to be subjugating yourself.”

“It’s not a crush,” he insists. “This is...something else.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I mean, I know Rey. I can see that there’s something there. The point still stands. Just...please be patient. I realize it’s ironic that I’m saying this to you, but she’s like a sister to me. I watch out for her. And I haven’t heard from my actual sister since before Christmas.” Just an Instagram like on Alice’s visit with Santa. “I take it she hasn’t called you, either?”

“Nothing.” 

Rose knows they should get back to the table. But as they stand up, she takes a moment and looks up at him. 

“I thought it was you.”

“What was me?”

“All this time, I thought you were the reason she pulled away. You didn’t even come to our wedding.”

“She didn’t want me to.” 

“It hurt, you know? It felt like constant rejection for four years.”

“Yes, it did.” He breathes in. “I guess the difference is that I deserved it.”

“Everyone deserves love, Ben. Otherwise, what’s the point of any of it?”

 

\------------

 

FRIDAY

She’s never fucking on time. Is she like this at work? Does she arrive late for client meetings? Does she get away with it because she always arrives with some kind of distraction? Shouting a nickname, slurping from giant drink cup...hanging on a man. 

A friend. He has to be a friend.

Ben knows he’s a friend because they’re clearly too comfortable with each other to be dating. Still, the sight of her being so easy and comfortable around another man makes his throat tight. 

What makes it worse is that she’s clearly _un_ comfortable when she greets Ben with a weird little half-hearted hug. Since when do they hug? They’ve hugged _once_. At Duane Reade. She was drunk and he was holding baby oil. He hates that he remembers that. But he doesn’t hug, as a rule, so the event stands out in his mind like an aberration. 

And of course he’ll probably remember this second awkward hug as the time she felt like she had to perform a normal act of friendship in front of her _actual_ friend, who she probably hugs all the fucking time. 

Dameron (of _course_ that’s his fucking name) is handsome in the traditional sense, a standard by which Ben has always been compared unfavorably. “Not traditionally good-looking.” “A striking face.” “Interesting features.” And on some message boards, “depends on the lighting,” complete with photographic evidence. Leia always tries to turn it into a positive, but why would it ever be preferable to being handsome without an asterisk? 

No, Dameron is like Rey. They are two empirically attractive people who go to bars together and literally charm the pants off the other patrons. 

So it’s surprising that Ben finds himself not minding when Dameron pulls him away to the bar, falling into (relatively) easy conversation with him over political writing. Ben can’t bring himself to watch cable news anymore, but he’s had plenty of time to catch up on long reads. And Dameron, a “content strategist” (whatever the fuck that means), apparently knows his shit, even those he’s irritatingly glib.

Plus, talking with him is a convenient way to avoid Rey.

He feels like a monster for feeling angry at a woman who had told him she was scared. But she’s so fucking frustrating in the way she forces him to be _exactly_ what she needs while disregarding what he wants, or how he feels about any of it. 

For the past week—since he got back to the loft, alone, around 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s, walked directly to the bedroom with zero hesitation, unzipped his pants and angrily jacked off onto his duvet, which he then had to clean—his mind has been churning, replaying things, identifying the missteps. The fact that he had to get himself off at all would seem to indicate that things hadn’t gone according to plan. 

He’s not a planner. Ben is much better at fantasy than strategy.

Maybe there was a vague _idea_ that Rey would come back to the loft. Maybe they would collapse onto the sofa and watch that _Twilight Zone_ marathon. But only for an episode or two. It would be too hard to find a cab, so Rey would shrug and ask to crash there like it was no big deal at all. Ben would casually offer her the sofa, and maybe a t-shirt to sleep in. He would probably take his time selecting the right shirt…

Yes, because for some reason, in his head, everything hinges on her putting on one of his shirts and suddenly realizing that they could have been fucking this whole time. 

He knows the exact shirt, too. It’s the perfect length, not that long. And he wouldn’t offer her shorts or pajama bottoms either. Only the shirt. Because what if it turns out that she’s wearing _those_ panties? Like she purposely put them on, thinking about him? Wouldn’t that be another sign? Or, she might be wearing none at all. What then?

What if, despite him scrounging up every random blanket, it still feels cold in the loft? It really does get cold in there. In the bedroom, there’s a down comforter and a space heater. He could offer her a sweatshirt, or socks, or even offer to let her have the bed and take the sofa. But he wouldn’t. 

The idea is that _she_ has to say it. _She_ has to ask if she can come inside the bedroom and stay in his bed. (And then she’d likely point out the double entendre, briefly ruining the moment. He doesn’t _like_ it, but it’s accurate, so it’s always part of the scene.) Does she softly knock? Does she just enter quietly? Does he carry her inside, with her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands firmly gripping her ass, and push her up against the wall that they repainted two weeks ago? 

Fuck that face-saving text message. Not that anything else would have made a difference. It had been too cold outside, too far away from a place where they could continue. They would have had to spend an hour on a train getting to a place where they could keep going and that would have been too much time. Reality would have set in under the harsh lighting and weird smells of the C train. 

_No_. If it happens, he knows—he just fucking _knows_ —it has to start in the deep end. They’re not going to kiss once, retreat to their separate lives for a few days and wait to take it one more step further. It can’t be a slow escalation. That would never fucking work. They need to break down every barrier before she has time to build them back up again.

He knows he’s right because all week she’s been doing the thing she always does, when it seems like they’ve taken a step forward, which is pretend like nothing happened. It’s fucking infuriating. So, let her be the uneasy one for once. Let her watch him get another woman’s number at this fucking event he’s only attending because she asked ( _and not even nicely_ ). It’s almost satisfying to watch her squirm.

\--

“Are you going to introduce me to this hard working communist family?”

Ben instinctively stands because it’s maddening to have Hux glaring down at him. He starts to make introductions around the table, but Hux cuts him off and more or less announces himself.

“Armitage Hugs, huh?” Dameron says. “That’s quite a name for American television.”

“It’s Hux. Rhymes with fu—”

“We know what it rhymes with. Ben, can you help me with something?” He hadn’t noticed Rose standing there. _This_ is when they’re going to have the Paige conversation? Leaving Hux at the table, unmitigated?

But he has no choice, so he gets up and follows Rose into a dingy, dimly lit storage closet, half-expecting her to shine a blinding light in his eyes and interrogate him.

“You brought another one of your First Order cronies to a Working Families event? Really?”

“He signed with CNN. He’s very in touch with working families.” 

“Oh. So are you interested in learning more about our mission? Our goals? That’s why you’re here?”

“I don’t believe in political parties with the fervor that you apparently do. I thought I was doing you a favor. Do you want me to buy a t-shirt, too?”

She raises her eyebrows. 

“Well, neither of you should mingle,” she says sharply. It’s fine. He has years of experience being aloof in places where he’s not wanted.

“That’s not why I wanted to talk to you, though.” She sits down on top of a crate and gestures for him to sit on a nearby stool. “I’m not blind. I get that there’s something going on between you and Rey—” _This is about Rey?_ “—but I need you to understand something. I’ve known her for eight years—”

“So have I.”

“Do you know about her parents? About what it was like for her, growing up? The trauma she’s been carrying around her entire life?”

“Yes. She told me.”

“Did you know that she’s never seen a therapist?”

“She mentioned you had suggested it.”

“She’s never had a real relationship. With a man her own age. An equal. Did you know that?” 

For some reason this particular scrap of information feels like a comfort rather than a caution. He grabs onto it, turning it over in his mind, other pieces of the puzzle somehow joining together with a satisfying click. _Of course_. 

“She hasn’t?” he asks, hoping she’ll elaborate. 

“No, Ben. You would be the first.” _It all makes sense now_. “Why do you think she’s acting this way?” 

“I know she’s had a rough time with the divorce.”

“Look, I’m not saying this is what’s happening with you, but I had a crush on Finn when we first became friends. I tried so hard to make something happen. It’s an awful feeling...just waiting for the other person to acknowledge it.”

“That’s not what’s going on.”

“I know, but just listen. After a couple months, I just let go of it. I focused harder on school, took a trip to Cuba, started dating other people. When we started hanging out again, I guess we just saw each other in a new way. And it didn’t seem like my life depended on every interaction.” 

“My life doesn’t depend on every interaction. I’m dating other people.”

“Be patient. Until you’re both ready, there’s always going to be an imbalance with an unrequited crush.”

“It’s not a crush. And it’s not unrequited.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“I mean, I know Rey. Just...please be careful with her. I realize it’s ironic that I’m saying this to _you_ , but she’s like a sister to me. I watch out for her. And I haven’t heard from my actual sister since before Christmas. I take it you haven’t, either?”

“Nothing.” The thought of so much as a text from Paige seems so foreign at this point.

“I thought it was you. I thought you were the reason she pulled away. You never didn’t even come to our wedding.”

“She told me not to.” 

“It hurt, you know? It felt like a constant rejection for four years.”

“Yes, it did. But it felt like what I deserved.”

“You deserve love, Ben. We all do.”

And, despite the fact that there’s still some contentious political debate yet to wage, a basic, human understanding passes between them. Ben senses that he’s created an ally for the first time in years.

Rey  
  
And he’s not my friend. He’s an acquaintance who owes me a favor.   
  
**Rey:** Ok, well just sayin. Poe has torrented A LOT of Australian reality shows.  
  
Should we try to prevent this trash fire?  
  
**Ben:** How?  
  


“Those are the kinds of bon mots I’m looking for,” Hux says, pointedly looking at Ben. “What I really see myself doing is hosting a panel show. Bring the format to the States the right way—”

“Really show off that winning personality,” Rey says before downing one of the shots she'd brought back from the bar. 

_Well, that answers that question._

Hux turns his attention to her, as if noticing her existence for the first time; he seems decidedly unimpressed. 

“Your girlfriend has quite a mouth on her, Solo,” he says with a petulant little smile. 

They talk over each other in the rush to respond

“—I’m not his girlfriend.”  
“—Don’t talk about her mouth.”

They glance at each other for a beat.

Finn and Rose finally seem interested in this development, looking up from the cat GIFs they’ve been idly watching on Finn’s phone. 

“Based on what I’ve heard,” adds Dameron, slurring his words slightly, “so does he.”

Rey turns some shade of red and Ben senses that he’s missing part of some joke. 

“Then again, most straight people haven’t the faintest clue how to do anything exciting with their mouths,” Hux adds.

“Well I’m not straight, I can do _extremely_ exciting things with my mouth, and we’re not _together_. We’re just friends, so you...can stop—”

“So do you leave those voicemails for _all_ your friends?” Dameron asks, looking Ben in the eye and ignoring Rey’s response. “Because I’d like to give you my number.”

 _Oh_. For the second time tonight, things click into place.

“What voicemails?” Hux asks, finally showing some actual curiosity about something other than himself.

“The voicemail that Rey has been getting off to every morning for the last month—”

There’s a flurry of voices reacting to this revelation, but Ben finds himself unable to say a fucking word. He knows she’s listened more than she admitted to, but _every morning?_

He glances at Rey for some kind of confirmation, which he gets because she’s not laughing. In fact, she looks like she’s about ready to punch someone or have the floor swallow her. 

_She’s listening to that stupid fucking message and touching herself—_ coming _—every fucking morning?_ It almost feels like a violation, her doing this without his knowledge, but who the fuck cares about that right now? 

“ _Morning_?” Hux says, with a little dismissive cackle. “In that case, my DMs are open, Solo.”

“You’re not fooling anyone at this table,” Dameron declares, taking a drink. “I’m just doing you a favor and putting it out there in the open. I mean, just kiss already and get it over with. You’re clearly in love with each other.” He turns to Hux. “And I am a selfless facilitator.”

“These will-they-or-won’t-they situations are so dull for the rest of us,” Hux murmurs, checking his phone. 

“Well, you’ll be happy to know we _already did_ ,” Rey says loudly, across the table, as everyone stares at her. “And we’re still friends and everything’s cool,” she adds, glancing at Ben. “It was No. Big. Deal.”

The whiplash hits him like a smack across the face. 

Finn and Rose exchange a look.

What he wants to do is knock everything off the table in a dramatic backhanded sweep, letting the glassware crash to the ground. And then he wants to take Rey by the shoulders and force her to admit to _something_ , literally anything. But instead he says nothing and stares at her with an expression that probably telegraphs exactly how hurt he feels. 

Hux rolls his eyes, and stands up to put his coat on. 

“I’m knackered,” he says, typing something into his phone. “Coming?” He looks at Dameron. 

“Counting on it.” 

Dameron pushes his chair back and rises to follow Hux out of the bar. Like it’s the most effortless thing in the world. _How the fuck are these things so simple for everyone else?_

Rose excuses herself to tend to some non-existent event-related matter across the room. 

Rose Tico  
  
**Rose:** She’s dealing with a lot. Remember the words of Sting. Always helped me.  
  


_Sting? What the fuck did Sting say?_

Finn apparently says something to both of them, but Ben misses all of it. Then he gets up, leaving them alone at the table. 

They sit in uncomfortable silence for several torturous minutes. 

“You know what’s great?” Rey offers, finally. “When you can sit with someone and not have to talk. It just shows how really comfortable you are.”

There is no way in hell he’s letting that be the last word. Because something important had been upstaged: something—maybe the _only_ thing—she hadn’t even denied this evening.

“Every morning?”

They both keep looking straight ahead, but he sees her bite her lip out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m nothing if not disciplined. In that one way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, if you hated this, don't worry, I will not do it again. Maybe you can tell that it's getting angsty in here, which means that something exciting is coming [cough] very soon. Like _very_.
> 
> The Working Families Party nominated Cynthia Nixon for NY governor this year. (She lost.) 
> 
> Here's [Untitled at the Whitney](https://www.untitledatthewhitney.com/). 
> 
> And the [ Astoria Beer Garden (aka Bohemian Hall)](http://bohemianhall.com/). It's definitely a summer location, but since it's winter in the story, they had to stay inside. I used to work at a museum in Astoria and this was our traditional spot after closing time. There are other imitators around the city, but this is the OG.
> 
> Ditmars is the last stop on the Astoria section of the yellow line and it's where my extended family lives and where two of my exes once lived (in a building that got condemned!). I think the stop has been under construction for awhile, which is probably really painful for the businesses and people who live there. So, here's my Ditmars/Beastie Boys tribute. Stay up, Astoria!


	13. You're waiting for a train...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The confrontation you knew was coming...and maybe one that you didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to a particular song over and over again writing this chapter and, to me, it’s a perfect Ben-angst track. Yes, it’s The Cure, I am very predictable. My boyfriend told me yesterday that I have depressing taste in music, which is saying something because he is a former goth DJ. But it’s a great song: [All I Want](https://open.spotify.com/track/4rNuON7VPPlXb4wXPrrcm9).
> 
> If you’re not familiar with the NYC subway system and if the term “showtime” doesn’t strike fear into your heart, you may want to [check this out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showtime_\(busking\)) for context before reading, because you _know_ I don’t describe in enough depth. 
> 
> Oh, and here's another subway train classic: [Dr. Zizmor](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35226720).
> 
>  

\---------------------

SATURDAY:

Leia  
  
**Ben:** We need to cancel brunch.  
  
**Leia:** Sarabeth’s. 12:45.  
  
**Ben:** I can’t make it.  
  
**Leia:** It’s fine if you don’t want to join. I love a girls’ brunch.   
  
**Ben:** What?  
  
**Leia:** I like Rey. I’m a fabulous mentor, you know.   
  
I only invited you to be polite.   
  


\---------- 

Poe DAMNeron  
  
**Today** 11:05 AM  
**Rey:** Hey  
  
We need to talk about last night.  
  
**Today** 11:08 AM  
You were so far out of line.  
  
**Today** 12:37 PM  
Where are you?  
  
**Today** 1:16 PM  
Srsly  
  
**Today** 3:40 PM  
Hello?  
  
**Today** 7:29 PM  
Answer me so I know you’re not dead  
  
So I can find you and murder you myself  
  


\-----------------

Ben agrees to meet Finn’s pretty co-worker for dinner when she texts on Saturday. And _of course_ , she wants him to come to Brooklyn. He pats himself on the back for neither complaining about it, nor disparaging Brooklyn. They eat at a restaurant in South Slope and Ben gets into a _very_ minor tiff with the waiter over the definition of medium rare. She seems mildly embarrassed on his behalf, but invites him back to her apartment anyway. For “tea.” 

After he accepts, already congratulating himself for taking this further than any of his other recent dates, she tells him that her apartment is in Borough Park. _Has Borough-fucking-Park become a new hipster enclave?_ But he already agreed to come over, so...

Thirty minutes of evening-in-January-walking later, they make it to her building, where she lets him know that she has roommates. But they’re apparently “chill” and, conveniently, out for the night. The apartment itself is nondescript: lots of second-hand IKEA and beige walls. He’s not judging, just observing. Nothing offensive. Which is probably why he notices this particular item when he looks for a coaster on which to place his mug of tea. (He’s surprised that there _is_ tea, and it isn’t just a thing you say to get someone to come up to your apartment.) It’s a wagon wheel coffee table: an actual wagon wheel with a fucking circle of glass over it. 

She dims the lights and turns on the TV. They watch the Netflix logo animate. 

“This table is interesting,” he says, in a show of sparkling conversation. “Is it...your roommate’s?”

No. It’s hers: the only piece of furniture she shipped down from Canada. _How is this not from a Staten Island garage sale?_ It’s so awful that there’s no way to explain how awful it is. Ben spends the next twenty minutes of Netflix-and-chill (really just Netflix-and-actual-tea) wondering if she likes the table in an ironic way or a sincere way. And which would be worse? And the tea. How is “want to come up for tea?” _not_ code for something? Tea is just glorified water. And if he read the tea code wrong, then all the signals might be crossed. 

_Fuck tea_. Now he’s in his head about the whole thing and why does he even bother trying to meet new people?

\--

When Ben gets back to his building from Borough-fucking-Park, he can tell immediately that something’s wrong. The elevator is on the 5th floor when he calls it from the ground, meaning someone is up in the loft. The list of people with the keys is short. 

Leia doesn’t ambush like this and he’s seeing her tomorrow.  
Rey would have texted, even if she weren’t avoiding him currently.  
Which leaves one person.  


Or a burglar. 

It’s probably too much to hope that a crime is being committed. 

Stepping into the elevator and turning the key, he uses the time in the slow ride up five floors to compose himself. Breathe. Get his fucking emotions in check. 

It doesn’t work. It never works.

When the door opens with a groan, he stomps out onto the wooden floor, dropping his coat at his feet. 

Luke stands at the front of the loft, near the drafting table Ben still hasn’t gotten around to selling. His back is to the elevator, and he looks down at the few remaining boxes and the papers strewn across the tilted tabletop. 

A few moments pass. He doesn’t turn around. It’s infuriating. Passive-aggressive. Cowardly.

Ben waits ten more seconds, which is a long time when you mentally count it out. It’s supposed to be a calming technique. Instead, every exhale is like pulling the starter rope on an engine.

Luke still doesn’t acknowledge his presence.

FUCK THIS. 

“Why did you come back here?” Luke doesn’t respond. Instead, he gently leafs through the books. “Turn around and _answer me_ , God damn it.” 

“I’m sorry, Ben.” He says it softly. 

“What?” He’d heard, but it’s not enough. “Turn around and say it to my fucking face.”

Luke finally turns around, leaning against the table, like a “cool professor” in a lecture hall. He’s always seen himself that way, so why wouldn’t he keep performing that stupid bullshit now?

“I failed you.” He looks older, yes. Ben hasn’t seen a photo of him in a few years, but he’s not grizzled or unkempt or anything like that. That might be satisfying. But, no. He looks almost camera-ready. Like he’s been doing TED Talks and appearances on pretentious talk shows. Like he’s the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of sociology.

“Stop being dramatic and tell me what the fuck you’re doing here.”

“Oh, _you’re_ one to talk about being dramatic.” Ben fumes. “I have as much right to be here as you do. More, actually. The property’s half mine. Everything in the apartment was half mine.” He looks down at the books again. “This is all that’s left of my father’s possessions?”

“We’re selling it. Leia said you agreed.”

“I agreed to sell it, not strip it for parts.”

“You’ve had more than thirty years to collect whatever shit you wanted. I’m doing you a fucking favor.” 

Luke lets out a chuckle. “That’s not why I’m here, but thank you all the same.” He looks down at the table and sighs. “I’m about to be Me Too’ed.” 

“What?” 

“Buzzfeed has a story. Met with my publisher yesterday. We’re crafting a statement to get out in front of it.”

“A statement? You mean a fucking _apology_?”

“I have nothing to apologize for. I’ve always lived my life according to the principles of my work and my morality and I’ve always been open about that. Last year I was ‘woke,’ now I’m problematic.”

Ben says nothing.

“I’m resigning from the department. I bought a property in Colorado near the farm I invested in.” 

“I don’t give a shit about your tenure or your farm or your nonexistent morality.”

“It was a good investment with the legalization. I made a killing.”

“I’m going to ask one more time. What the _fuck are you doing here_?”

“I’m giving you my half of the proceeds from the loft, whatever it is. You need it. I want you to have it.”

Ben says the words slowly: “I don’t want your pity.”

“I failed you. I see that now. Submitting that report...it was a mistake,” Luke says, moving around the table toward where Ben stands. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I had legitimate concerns at the time.” 

“That I was an ‘imminent threat?’ Fuck you.”

“I was trying to help you. I didn’t realize what would happen. It shouldn’t have gone that way.”

“You ruined my _fucking life_.”

“No. I made a mistake. And I did my best to fix it, but you wouldn’t listen. Everything that happened after was all you.”

Ben clenches and unclenches his fist.

“There’s something else.” Luke reaches in his pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper. “I found the Falcon. It’s changed hands a few times, but I found the current owner. You can use some of the money to buy it back. Make it right with Han.”

“So you’re here to absolve me of whatever the fuck you think I did...with your money?”

“I tried to deny the truth about my father for years. It doesn’t work. I waited too long to face it. And this”—he gestures at the books and papers—”is all that’s left of him. You can end this right now. Learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them.”

“Fuck your mistakes.”

“Did you restore this? I don’t remember it actually working as a drafting table.”

“Rey fixed it.”

“Ray?”

“She was one of your...students. Or do you not remember their fucking names?”

“Oh, _Rey_. I didn’t know you were friends.” 

“We’re not just friends.” Maybe it’s just the most convenient way to inflict more damage. Provoke some petty jealousy. But Luke doesn’t seem affected in the slightest. 

“I see.”

“Since you’re so sorry all of a sudden, why doesn’t she get one of your apologies?” 

“You want me to contact—”

“No. No, you don’t get to do any more damage to her or to me, or to anyone. With your stupid bullshit theories, or your money.” 

“It’s a lot to process. I know that. Think it over. I’m leaving in the morning, but you know how to reach me.” Fuck him and his calm fucking demeanor. “Give my best to Leia.”

Ben silently seethes as Luke picks up his bag and walks to the elevator, punching the button for the lobby. He’s at what should be the lowest point of his career—on the verge of a public humiliation—and he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about it. The door slides closed and Ben lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

When he hears the elevator lurch to the ground floor, Ben picks up the sledge hammer that’s been patiently waiting for the day he and Rey were going to demolish the non-load-bearing interior walls. 

He hasn’t let himself rage like this in years. But the anger feels inviting, almost comforting.

He looks at the off-white drywall, stripped of framed artwork and shelving but marked with forty years of scuffs and scratches—even a telling indent that looks like someone threw a punch. 

He takes one swing. A hole gives way and it’s the most satisfying feeling he’s had in weeks. Ten times better than a punching bag. The wall wasn’t meant to last forever. It can be destroyed. 

He swings over and over, until the adrenaline subsides. The wall still stands, albeit with half a dozen holes. He lets the sledge hammer fall to the floor, probably damaging the wood. It briefly occurs to him that it’s just another thing that Rey will want to fix. But she’s probably never coming up here again, so fuck Luke and her and all of it. 

—————

SUNDAY

“I could have gotten you out of that,” Ben says as Leia’s town car pulls away from the curb. He had not given her Luke’s “best,” nor mentioned his visit to anyone. Predictably, he’d felt like a fucking idiot about the wall and the sledgehammer when he awoke this morning. He’d also considered sitting out this stupid brunch, but the thought of what Leia might overshare with Rey in the name of “mentorship” had forced his hand. So he’d sat there, sullenly, for ninety minutes while Rey showed genuine enthusiasm for his mother’s anecdotes. 

“Um, excuse me, your mom bought me a carafe of bellinis and my own basket of muffins. And all I had to do was assure her that that terrible cheating man is definitely going to leave his wife.”

“Yes, thank you for being the sole person to enable her.”

They stand outside Sarabeth’s while Rey puts on the mittens that she claims are warmer than gloves. _An adult wearing mittens._ This is who he’s losing his goddamn mind over? 

“Cheaters leave their wives all the time. Who better to assure her of that than me?” 

It’s hard to tell how to take that. She’s taking cool detachment to new heights this week. It’s almost like she took the events of Friday night and wrapped herself in a even thicker cocoon of indifference. She’s even wearing a different coat today, like she doesn’t want to risk reminding him of anything. 

“Where are you headed?” She looks at him expectantly, like they’re definitely going to walk to some new destination together. “Eighty-first?” 

He hesitates for just a moment, unable to come up with an alternative in time, before giving her a nod and they walk up Amsterdam silently. 

“So what’d you do yesterday?” she asks, as they round the corner. 

He cringes at the realization that they’re now engaging in benign small talk. They’ve never exchanged pleasantries like this; it’s almost offensive in its banality. 

“Had a date.”

Rey stops walking. “You did?” 

“The woman I met at the thing on Friday. She teaches at Finn’s school.” 

“Oh…” She takes a few quick steps to catch up with him. “And?”

“It was fine.” What right does she have to know that he left after a single episode of _Hill House_ because her ugly coffee table triggered an existential crisis?

“Great.”

Every monosyllabic word she utters jabs him in the sternum.

He should ask her what _she_ did yesterday, but he doesn’t actually want to know. She probably fucked some stranger without a second thought. There’s nothing she could say right now that he wants to hear. 

Silence falls over them again until she fills it with more chatter. 

“I need to find a birthday present for Alice,” she announces, as if she’s rifling through index cards covered in bland talking points. “Maybe I’ll try the gift shop at the planetarium. She’s really into space these days.”

He half expects her to peel off on her own as they pass the museum, but she stays exactly half a step behind him with her shorter strides.

“You headed home? Taking the C?” 

“It’s not ‘home,’ but yeah.” 

He heads down the stairs to the station and he feels her continue to follow close behind. 

He swipes his MetroCard and pushes through the turnstile, hoping she might stop at that threshold. But Rey removes her mittens and reaches into her bag for card, even though she hasn’t said where she’s going. 

\---------------

Poe DAMNeron  
  
**Poe:** You rang? (12 times?)   
  
**Rey:** Where have you been??  
  
**Poe:** Join us for brunch?  
  
**Rey:** I'm just finishing brunch  
  
**Poe:** Never stopped you before  
  
**Rey:** Fair  
  
**Poe:** Where are you?   
  
**Rey:** WUS.  
  
Shit. UWS.   
  
But I can’t meet you. I’m with Ben.   
  
“with US” wtf??   
  
**Poe:** So you did it.   
  
**Rey:** Did what?  
  
**Poe:** You’re together first thing in the morning?  
  
**Rey:** It’s 2 pm  
  
**Poe:** I said what I said.  
  
I told you I’d help you out.  
  
**(Poe: Sunglasses Emoji )**  
  
**Rey:** You know that was TWO nights ago, right?  
  
**Poe:** Well done, you two.   
  
**Rey:** We’re NOT done talking about all that shit you pulled.  
  
**Poe:** Fine, I’ll kick Hux out and you can come over and we’ll hug and make it better.   
  
**Rey:** He’s still there?!????  
  


The tourists bunch up at the ends of the platform, near the entrances, so Ben walks toward the sparsely populated middle. 

“I don’t believe this,” Rey says, following him and holding out her phone. “Did you know your rude friend is _still_ at Poe’s apartment? I’m going over there. Look.”

“He’s not my friend,” he insists, taking the phone from her hand. Begrudgingly. 

As he scrolls up to see the beginning of the conversation, he has that same funny look on his face from the other night. Something’s wrong—his poker face is utter shit—but no tactic she can muster seems to mend whatever is broken. He wordlessly hands the phone back. 

“I mean, I can believe him leaving with just about anyone, but he never said he had a thing for gingers.”

“Shouldn’t you be taking the One?” 

“I’ll take the C to Fiftieth.”

“Faster to walk over to the One.”

“Okay. Then I’ll wait with you until your train comes.” 

He actually rolls his eyes, like he’s disappointed that she’s not just leaving. It stings. Actually, no. It doesn’t just sting, it _hurts_. Which means she can’t let it go and walk away; she has to hurt him back a little bit.

“Is something on your mind, Ben?”

He walks a few steps in the other direction, shoving his hands in the pockets of his expensive-looking winter coat, like he wants to pace. 

She hasn’t picked a fight with him before, at least not since they’ve been friends. Not a real fight. 

There’s no sign of any train yet. 

So...they’re doing this. 

He turns around.

“Interesting conversation you wanted to show me. Why are you so desperate to confront Dameron? And talk all about your friend fucking my friend—”

“I thought he wasn’t your friend.”

“—but you’re never going to acknowledge a goddamn thing about you and me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re only upset because he’s right about everything. And you’ve been pretending like nothing happened for a fucking week.”

“I’m not pretending. I just don’t think we need to give it more oxygen.” It feels stifling down here. Rey grabs her scarf from around her neck and shoves it into her tote bag. “ _You’re_ the one who said it was nothing. Just a New Year’s Kiss?” She holds up her phone. “I have the evidence.”

“As long as you’re keeping track of the evidence, you’ve been using the sound of my voice to make yourself come every morning without ever mentioning it to me? Great metaphor for our ‘friendship,’ by the way.”

He starts to pace again. 

“Hey! I’m going through a divorce. This is how I cope with it.” She walks up behind him, shouting at his back. There still aren’t many people on this part of the platform, but the ones who are nearby seem to be looking. “I had half my life ripped away.”

“So that gives you the right to act like this? I know you lie to everyone else about whatever the fuck we are. And maybe they don’t want to call you on it because they feel sorry for you. But don’t try that bullshit with me.” He seems to wait for her to deny it, but she can’t come up with a response. “And by the way, masturbation isn’t a cure for depression.”

He’s never used the word _depression_ before. They’ve had an implicit agreement not to label it that way, haven’t they? Her anger flares as the flight impulse kicks in and she turns on her heel of her off-brand Ugg boot to escape. 

“Oh so you’re running away now that the truth is out in the open?” He catches up to her in two long steps. The other people on the platform seem to have dissipated. 

“What ‘truth?’ I don’t need your stupid voicemail to get off. Why do you think I have my Tinder Snacks?”

“That’s what you call them? The other kind of ‘friend’ you have? What about me? Where does that leave me?”

“Oh, so you want to be my fuck buddy now? Is that it? Or is that actually what you wanted this entire time?” 

“No.”

“Friends with benefits are disposable. I don’t even _like_ half the people I fuck.”

“So you’d rather fuck people you hate than someone you love.”

“Who said _anything_ about love?”

“Definitely not _you_.”

He turns away again, apparently trying to get the last word, but she can’t let him have it. 

“Let’s talk about _you_ for minute, then,” she says, walking after him. “Why aren’t you more broken up about Paige? I never see that back up on you. How is that possible?”

“I went through a grieving period. It’s over.”

“ ‘Grieving period?’ ” She gets up in his face. “ When did that occur, the day before I ran into you at Babeland? It’s like you bought a bottle of lube and forgot she ever existed.”

“I don’t have to take this from you. I’m not the problem here.” 

“If you’re so over Paige, why hasn’t there been anyone else for the last three months?”

Finally, the low rumble of an approaching train.

“I literally went out on a date last night.”

“Oh, you’re ‘dating?’ Let me ask you something. Have you fucked _one_ person since you broke up with her? One?”

The headlights of the C shine over the platform.

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything? _That_ will prove I’m over Paige? Because I fuck somebody?” He’s practically shouting over the noise of the train. “You’ve slept with, what, dozens of people since your wife left? You’re taking revenge on someone who doesn’t give a shit about you anymore.”

He steps in her personal space, towering over her. She stares at him, speechless, eyes welling up with tears. They’ve both gone too far to take any of it back. 

The train screeches as it blows past them into the station. 

“The next time I fuck someone, it’s not going to be because I’m desperate to bang away the memory of my ex. You’ve known the truth this whole time. I haven’t slept with anyone else because the only person I want to fuck is you.” 

Her stomach drops and some indecipherable sound escapes her throat, but it's not a word. 

“Why are you so afraid of that?” he asks, not moving. 

The train doors open and a generically cheerful pre-recorded voice announces the station.

_“This is...Eighty First Street, Museum of Natural History. This is a Euclid Avenue bound...C train. The next stop is Seventy Second Street.”_

He takes a step back onto the train as the tourists brush past them. The gap between the car and the platform feels like a giant chasm.

“I’m not afraid,” she hears herself say. “I...”

 _An ultimatum._ How could it not be? It’s all out there now. Too late to go back to being friends. Rey could do it. She’s good at shoving down her feelings. But Ben’s always bubble right up to the surface. There’s really no choice. 

_“Stand clear of the closing doors please.”_

“Then get on the fucking train.” He holds out his hand. 

The doors start to slide again. There’s no time to think. She's not going to be left standing here. He can't be another person who leaves.

Rey reaches for his hand and he pulls her inside. 

\--

The train shudders and pulls forward, which makes them collide briefly. Rey backs up against the door, like she’s trying to get out of a stranger’s way, even though she’s still grasping his hand. 

Ben pulls her across the width of the car to the opposite set of doors, like he’s afraid she might jump out at the next stop when the doors open again. 

It feels like they should be sharing a passionate kiss, or at least, you know, _looking at each other_. 

But she feels awkward.  
The train is crowded.  
Her mind is swirling.  
And she’s not sure what she just agreed to. 

Her eyes land on an ancient Dr. Zizmor ad. It’s a welcome distraction. _Didn’t he stop practicing years ago?_

She arranges herself so that they’re both standing with their backs against the doors, instead of face-to-face. 

“What now?”

“We go back to my place.” His voice is low and serious and unwavering.

“Oh.” And hers is shaking. “Okay.” 

Dr. Zizmor definitely retired. Yep. She’s sure she read a snarky article about it a couple years ago. 

The train hums along for another minute, before stuttering to a halt at 72nd. Her stomach is a giant knot. Half a dozen people enter the car. Rey counts the remaining stops in her head. _Columbus Circle...50th...Port Authority..._

The train moves again and she feels him shift his hand so that their fingers are interlocking. Have they been holding hands this whole time? He’s stroking the pulse point of her wrist with his thumb and _are they going to talk about this?_

_“This is...Fifty-Ninth Street, Columbus Circle. This is a Euclid Avenue bound...C train. The next stop is Fiftieth Street.”_

_So it’s like five, no, six stops to West 4th? It’s fine. This is fine. It just happens to be the fastest moving local train in Manhattan._

_The pressure has been building for too long. That’s obvious._ _When there’s too much pressure, you open a relief valve_. _Yes. It’s actually very logical. It’s mechanical. Letting off steam. It could actually be what the friendship needs. This is fine._

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees the boombox just before the doors close again. _Shit_. There’s no time to switch cars.

“It’s _showtime_!” a young man shouts, as a group of four dancers spread across the middle section of the car. As the music kicks in, the New Yorkers instinctively wince and make themselves small while the tourists look on in anticipation. 

One of the dancers immediately jumps for the handrails and Rey backs up as far against the door as possible without getting too close to Ben.

She ducks, but the dancer’s sneaker comes within an inch of her head as he somersaults near the ceiling. Ben pulls her behind him, tucking her into the corner where the edge of the door meets the metal bars next to the bench seats. It’s supposed to be chivalrous, and she definitely does not want to be a victim of “Showtime,” but now they’re facing each other again and “Showtime” is definitely going to last until Port Authority. Unless maybe she jumps out at 50th. Not that she could get out now, being wedged in a corner. She never really feels comfortable when she can’t see an exit.

He’s blocking her view of “Showtime” with his massive frame, and she can’t see the doors open when the train stops, over the music and the tourists clapping along.

So she stares straight ahead, right into Ben’s shirt which is peeking out from his unzipped jacket. Where does he get all these shirts? Why are they softer than anyone else’s shirts? And is she going to take that soft shirt off in— _oh God_ —like twenty minutes? _It’s warm in here. Like,_ really _warm._ An actual bead of sweat is dripping along her back, she’s sure she feels it. But there’s no room to get her arms through the sleeves of her peacoat and take it off. 

She feels the back of Ben’s hand against her cheek. It feels ice cold. Like a relief. 

“You're warm.” His voice is barely audible over the music. 

She nods, as he moves his hand away from her face. He lowers it down to her coat, slowly undoing the oversized buttons, one by one, opening it up, brushing his fingers against her chest as he moves down, down, down. It doesn’t help at all. Another drop of sweat trickles down her back. She recites the stops in her head _42nd, 34th, 23rd, 14th....West 4th..._

\------------------

When “Showtime” finally ends at 42nd, the car empties out quite a bit and Ben maneuvers them over to the two-person seat next to the door.

_“Stand clear of the closing doors please.”_

The train rumbles down the track again and they sit side-by-side in relative silence. Ben strategically places his Burberry scarf over his lap. It was a gift from Paige and it’s finally serving some kind of higher purpose.

“Um,” Rey says before taking a several-seconds-long pause, “are we gonna talk about this?”

“Talk about it?”

“Like...before we—?”

“All we’ve done for months is talk, Rey.” 

They bump against each other as the train practically slams into to the next stop.

_“This is...Thirty-fourth Street, Penn Station. This is a Euclid Avenue bound...C train. The next stop is Twenty-third Street.”_

Just before the doors close, a fucking mariachi band rushes aboard and launches into a song with a very loud accordion. _Do they just follow ‘Showtime’ from train to train, batting cleanup?_

Between the guitars, and the accordion, and the singing, talking is no longer an option, which is fine with Ben. It’s actually perfect. 

Because, normally, he’d be tripping over himself to make her more comfortable. But he doesn’t feel compelled to do that anymore. 

Instead, he has the urge to push. Because they just had a breakthrough. _Finally_. 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket.  
No service.  
Doesn’t matter.  


He opens the Notes app and starts to type.

 **Ben:** A talk:

He shows her the phone and waits a beat for her to affirm before typing another line.

 **Ben:** We’re going back to the loft.

She gives a little nod and runs her knuckles of her right hand across her lips. He takes the device back and continues typing as the band makes their way down the aisle.

 **Ben:** It’s very simple:  
  
I take off every fucking winter layer you have on. Probably in the elevator.  
  
Then you get on my bed, or whichever surface you prefer.  
  
And I make you come all afternoon.

He hands her the phone, watching like a hawk as her eyes glance over the screen. She bites her lip, and _maybe_ smiles a tiny bit and types something before handing it back.

 **Rey:** The surface I prefer is your face.  
  
What about you? When do you come? 

He quickly taps out another sentence and holds it in front of her.

 **Ben:** Seems like you have three stops to figure that out.  
  
Anything else? 

She shakes her head.

The band exits the train and it seems twice as quiet when the stop is announced.

_“This is...Twenty-third Street. This is a Euclid Avenue bound...C train. The next stop is Fourteenth Street.”_

Rey’s knee is bouncing and she still won’t look him in eye. Ben doesn’t mind. In fact, he takes a bit of pleasure in this nervous energy she’s giving off. It’s proof that she _feels something_. That she understands this is right. This is how it was always supposed to be. There’s no point in fighting it anymore.

Just two more stops. They’ll be getting off soon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I swerved. 
> 
> Many people who are familiar with WHMS have asked me how I was going to handle this part, since there’s another “famous” scene involved. And, a long time ago, I did write a version that is a lot more like the movie. But, ultimately, I try to prioritize the characters over WHMS. 
> 
> And I have a lot of hot takes on the movie scene. I’ve read it a bunch of times and I tried to semi-capture what I think is really going on: Sally is being manipulative and a little naive, and Harry is kind of thrown off and kind of into it but not totally there. 
> 
> I came upon an interesting [essay](https://www.thatmomentin.com/moment-harry-met-sally-1989/) about the scene on which the wagon wheel coffee table argument is based, if you’re a WHMS fan and are so inclined. It dives into the choreography of the scene and how it visually communicates the power dynamic. 
> 
> Oh, and there’s a pretty big reference to [One Night Stand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909606/chapters/34534748) in here, which is one of the all-time great one(two)-shots in this fandom by a Canadian teacher who is too good for Ben Solo. ;)


	14. Pink Cashmere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two idiots deal with the pain and pleasure of getting it on. The part in the movie where it literally fades to black and cuts to the next scene? Here’s my version.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of notes this time: 
> 
> I drew [a diagram of the loft](https://66.media.tumblr.com/8d00aea5bd264ee81f31c8bf5f792689/tumblr_pixkszHyjM1qz84rk_640.jpg) in the course of answering an anon ask. It’s really tedious to write out an explanation of a floor plan within the text of a fic, and of course, I rarely bother with descriptions in any case, so maybe you’ll find this helpful. I’ve also updated my [ map](https://drive.google.com/open?id=15aicyearUQ7K_Aq79HXp0QKTa2iBNILY&usp=sharing) of real life story locations and I made a little [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5dhvCYZXeCDLAF7lQ4gnr7) with some songs I found inspirational for this chapter. I mostly listened to a playlist literally called “Prince Slow Jams,” but eventually I added some more stuff on there. A few people asked about the song that made me cry while writing. It’s the title of the chapter, [Pink Cashmere](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7CzYTtshIA). I knew right away this was my song because it’s Prince, plus a string section, plus three different climaxes, including a guitar solo climax. I’m extra, okay? But the lyrics are actually really sweet and kind of on point. Plus, when you’re writing smut, it’s good to play music that swells multiple times. 
> 
> Secondly, there are TWO amazing pieces of fan art for this story. The first was sent to me last month by The_High_Priestess who is an amazing commenter and it’s an [incredible collage-like piece](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/post/180205898495/well-im-dead-im-so-so-lucky-to-have-some) that has so, SO many details from the story. It’s like a Doing the Unstuck object museum. I recommend looking at the [high res version](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bHD8VFwmjTr0Ly9YovNphYMasqFxELK_) in order to see the level of detail. It’s truly astonishing. I could look at it forever and I would love to make some kind of key for it at some point. 
> 
> The second piece was created by famed Reylo artist [ Selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen). I’m a huge fan of her work and her particular style. I mean, she already made my life by drawing me dancing with a Hutt in [ Maroon](https://selunchen.tumblr.com/post/180073040412/maroon-m%C9%99%CB%88ru%CB%90nleave-someone-trapped-and-alone). But to have her draw [Rey and Ben hanging out in the loft](https://selunchen.tumblr.com/post/180927245562/should-i-order-from-westville-or-quantum-leap) (which is a special place for me, personally)... it’s just so amazing. AND she also talked me through this chapter, sending me all sorts of amazing ideas and, um, inspirational GIFs. I feel like she deserves a “story by” credit at the very least. I hope I did her ideas justice. 
> 
> I’m putting both of these pieces up by my desk so I can gaze upon them forever.
> 
>  
> 
> What is a [Bowflex](https://images.qvc.com/is/image/f/51/f10951.002)?

When Rey grabbed her potential-sex tote bag this morning (it’s her “Ocasio-Cortez for Congress” tote and it’s _lucky_ ), it wasn’t because she thought she’d be potential-sex-ing with Ben Solo. She has a Tinder date later, which she hasn’t bothered to mention, nor cancel. 

Big white clumps of snowflakes begin to coat the south boundary of Washington Square as they walk east. Ideal snowball conditions, actually. Not that Rey has much experience with snowballs. Just a couple times here and there on campus back in Chicago. In New York, clean, fresh snow doesn't last long. But there's no time to stop and enjoy it anyway.

The wind cuts right through her barely-lined peacoat. This morning she’d discovered some mystery stain on the sleeping bag coat, probably from a whiskey sour-related mishap on Friday night, which is why she’d worn this insufficient wool-blend thing from the sale rack at the Gap. 

Ben, of course, appears to be unaffected by wind or snow, either because of his Canada Goose parka that probably cost a thousand dollars, or...for other reasons. He’s walking fast. Practically jogging. Which means Rey is _actually_ jogging every few steps, hugging her arms around her torso for warmth. 

His block comes up fast once they cross Broadway. 

Participating in the Notes app dirty talk had been a mistake. It’s not that her response had been _untrue_. It’s just the wrong format for communicating with nuance. _Hey, I have always wanted to ride your face, but I’m currently suffering from a number of loved-one-related traumas and it’s so much easier if I only sit on anonymous faces. Should we grab a bagel?_

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

He’s being impulsive. And she gets it. Because her body is right there with him, steering the ship right over the waterfall, while her mind frets and looks for the life preserver. In another minute, they’ll get to the loft and tear into each other and dismantle the friendship they carefully forged, knocking down one brick after another. 

On the other hand...well, _his enormous hands_. That’s a consideration. One she’s thought about a lot during this silent walk. Maybe it’s not just a dismantling. Maybe they could pick up those bricks and form something new. A giant penis sculpture, perhaps.

Maybe the sex will be so mind-blowing that they will simply become regular fuck buddies and neither of them will even miss the PG-rated parts of the relationship.

_Maybe._

By the time they reach his block, Ben’s five steps ahead of her, shoving his hands in his coat pockets, frantically searching for the keys. With a sigh of relief, he locates them just as she catches up to him at the door. 

She thinks of a line to cut the tension. Something like _“Oh, were you planning to let me in, too?”_ But her buzzing phone interrupts her train of thought before she commits to saying it. She expects it to be the Tinder Snack, firming up plans, but it’s not. 

_Poe!_ She was supposed to go over there and yell at him. _Shit_. She opens the text. 

Poe DAMNeron  
  
**Poe:** Not coming huh?  
  
Or ARE you?  
  
I think I know why….  
  


“Something wrong?” Ben asks, with a trace of dread, not so subtly glancing over her shoulder at the phone. 

“Damn,” she says softly, looking at the [GIF](https://ibb.co/L9JRmtb), which features Keanu Reeves enthusiastically going down on a woman. It’s beautifully mesmerizing. So it takes a few long seconds to press the Home button and, in that time, Ben definitely sees the whole thing. 

It’s like the GIF version of a motivational speech. 

They exchange a look as Rey drops her phone in her bag, text unanswered. Ben jams the key into the lock and throws the door open wildly, metal clanging against the wall. He bursts through the door, yanking on her hand, charging through the vestibule to the elevator. 

Of course the elevator is on the sixth floor. 

He slams his hand on the button.

She’s about to ask if he meant the part about the elevator literally, when he grabs for the lapels of her coat and pushes her up against the little slice of wall next to the mailboxes, completely obliterating her view of anything else. 

Ben pulls the sleeves on her damp peacoat until it comes off, dropping on the ground. The elevator lazily makes its way down.

She watches him go for the little buttons on her dress. He almost looks a bit crazed as he fumbles with them. She doesn’t mention that the dress can actually just go right over her head without unbuttoning. 

“Fuck it.” He abandons the top of the dress and bends slightly to run his hands under the hem. Rey immediately feels her legs tense. 

“Ben.” It’s really fast. Which should be perfect. 

_Why is this not working?_

Pinning her to the cold wall, he presses against her as his hands explore beneath inside her tights. He’s hard. No mistaking it. Not exactly hiding it, either.

“Should we find out how wet you are?”

 _Wet?_ When did she have time to get wet? You can’t get wet when you’re internally strategizing about how to smoothly evolve three months of friendship into something new in the space of an afternoon.

He pulls the tights down a bit, sliding a hand inside her underwear. 

“ _Ben_ , don’t.” 

“What?” It comes out tinged with frustration, but he pulls his hand back immediately.

The elevator dings; the doors slide open with a creak.

“Fuck.” He exhales dramatically, almost resetting. “Okay. Okay.”

\-----

He picks up her coat and nods toward the open elevator doors. She steps inside, maybe a bit cautiously. As he retrieves his keys again, Rey looks at the ceiling and catches her breath. 

_It’s just sex. What the hell did you expect? Like this wouldn’t be awkward and messy as fuck?_

Ben shoves one of the keys into the lock next to the number five and the elevator climbs upward. 

He turns around and she braces herself for another artless, frenzied encounter. But he just stands in front of her, like he’s trying to discern what he did wrong. His face cycles through a dozen variations on “torment.” Rey feels a strange urge to comfort him; he always shows hurt on his face like he never learned to hide it. 

But before she can speak, he lowers his head, as if to whisper something in her ear. Maybe he thinks she needs _that_ voice. But there’s no sound. Just the soft, lingering press of his lips against her cool cheek. 

Maybe it’s an apology for an offense he doesn’t understand and didn’t intend. It’s quiet and sweet and has nothing to do with any dirty promises made via Notes app—in the last twenty minutes or four years ago. 

The intimacy of the gesture raises a tiny, pleasurable prickle at the back of her neck. No one has bothered to kiss her cheek in a long time. Without thinking, she chases it, turning her head to the left. Their lips touch once, part, and meet again, a little deeper, a little bolder every time, until they don’t separate at all and his hands tangle in her hair and they breathe each other in and...

Maybe he’d desperately wanted to do this on the train, but it was too public, or coated in germs. Depriving himself of something he wants for twenty minutes is _very_ on-brand for him. 

They pull back enough to search each other’s eyes for a beat, as if to confirm this is, indeed, happening, before diving back in for more. 

The twisted knot in her stomach unfurls a bit and tightens again as they wrap their arms around one another. Well, she tries, but his coat is very insulated. 

“Rey,” he breathes, when their lips part for more than a half second. 

She’d prefer he not talk. Ben will make _this_ sound simple. Because he’s probably rehearsed _this_ as much as she’s denied it. The knot pulses and tightens pleasurably with the notion that he thinks about her _that_ way. He has been thinking about her that way. Maybe for awhile. 

But Rey doesn’t actually want either of them to think about _this_. It implies a lot more than the multiple orgasms that he promised. 

_This_ is messy and open.  
_This_ is tender and soft.  
_This_ is personal.  


And she’s getting lost in it. Because Ben feels warm and safe and loving and she hasn’t felt that way in forever. 

It would be so easy to just let go. But that’s not why she’s here. She agreed to sex, not _this._

Rey hasn’t _kissed_ in awhile. (And she doesn’t count New Years Eve.) She’s kissed, of course, the way you do when your date isn’t terrible and you feel like it would be rude not to. Since the divorce (and, quite frankly, for the last few months of the marriage), making out has been mostly a box to be checked on the way to some other destination. She doesn’t care to do it with randoms. And if this is really about two people who are great friends and also just want to fuck each other, why are they doing _this_?

_The line must be redrawn._

As the elevator comes to an unnervingly abrupt halt at the fifth floor, Rey seizes the opportunity to wrest control of the situation. 

Pulling back from the kiss, she grabs Ben by his stupid, expensive coat and leads him out of the elevator and into the apartment. He immediately moves to continue where they left off, but she dodges him by grabbing her coat back from his hand and tossing it over a kitchen chair. 

“Take this off,” she orders, tugging at his parka. He looks a bit thrown by the shift in tone, so she adds, “Take your boots off. Take everything off.”

It’s not as if he’s uncooperative. He willingly throws his coat to the ground without so much as a wince, despite the fine coating of drywall dust that covers the wood floor. (Why there are multiple sledgehammer holes in the opposite wall is a question for another time.) 

Rey steps out of her knock-off Uggs and hastily touches the fabric of his shirt, grabbing it in her fist and pulling up. He raises his arms automatically as she tugs it over his head and tosses it aside. 

The sight before her is...unexpected.

Ben swallows and moves closer. Her hand skims over his chest, drawn there like a novelty magnet to a refrigerator door. 

“What the fuck?” she exclaims. “How much time have you been spending at the gym?”

“It helps me clear my head.” 

“How are you not a zen master at this point?”

He moves to unbutton her dress again, but she swats his hand away. 

“No. Just let me.” 

She needs to remain in charge. He can’t be trusted.

Her hand migrates down to his fly. Ben can’t stop himself from assisting in removing the pants quickly, leaving him in his boxer briefs. She gets her hands under those immediately, taking a sick pleasure in the possibility that she’s irreparably stretching the Italian-cotton blend material.

Rey reaches beneath the waistband, wrapping her hand around—

“Oh shit,” she says softly. 

The underwear makes a quick exit. Rey is careful to stretch the waistband over...the enormous fucking cock that is currently pointing up and in her direction. 

_I have been casually sitting next to this for months_. 

Her stomach tightens again, just looking. Why shouldn’t she just look for a little bit? Strike a blow against the male gaze?

She backs up to the arm of the couch, perching there. This isn’t exactly part of her game plan, but it won't hurt to deviate...maybe put him on edge so they both understand who's in control. 

But if he feels embarrassed or awkward, he doesn’t show it. Almost like he wants to be seen. For her to see him this way. 

_God damn._

He looks her in the eye, reaches down, and takes his cock in his hand and moves it slowly up and down the shaft. Her eyes widen. She could make him perform for her. 

“Hold on,” she says, crossing the room to retrieve her tote bag. “Here.” She hands him a little bottle of Sliquid. 

“I’ve always wondered what you keep in that tote bag.” He regards her for a moment. “I didn’t expect lube. Somehow.”

“Shut up and show me how you touch yourself,” she orders. Sometimes she tries this tactic with her hookups. This time, it doesn’t sound very convincing, but Ben complies. 

Rey watches him follow her directions as she rolls down her tights and steps out of her panties. She leaves the dress on, staying in control of everything on her body. The less he sees, the better.

“What do you think about when you do this?” she asks, intending to steer him towards generic dirty talk and regretting the question immediately.

“I think you know.” 

_Shit._

Why? Why are they locking eyes? She should be staring at his massive hand, stroking his very proportionate cock but instead they’re eye fucking again. 

_No_. It’s all too intimate. 

\---

“Bedroom?”

“No!” She’s almost surprised by the vehemence of her response. But she definitely doesn’t want to take this to his bed, which would be soft and nice and where everything’s going to smell like his fancy detergent. 

She looks around for the least romantic alternative. _Couch? Chair? Table?_ Her eyes land on something intriguing near the front windows. _Perfect_. It’s impossible to catch feelings on a Bowflex. 

“Here,” she says, leading him over to the angled bench and pushing him down, maybe a bit more roughly than necessary. “This is perfect. I read a _Men’s Fitness_ listicle with some positions you can do on a home gym.”

“This looks like a torture device. Shouldn’t we switch places? I thought you wanted me to—”

“I changed my mind. I think I want to fuck you. Me on top.” The further apart their faces can be, the better. She walks back to where she dropped her tote bag, pulling out a condom. “If you had taken my advice and bought carabiners we could have done some weird shit.”

“I don’t know about sitting. The leverage...”

“I haven’t done missionary since high school. I like being on top. Instead of just laying there.”

“So don’t just lay there.”

“Ben,” she whines, “just let me drive. Okay? We can do it your way later.”

He looks up at her with the same vaguely bewildered expression he’s had for the last ten minutes. She holds out the condom.

“Hold on. We’re not there yet.” 

“We’re not? Really?”

“Just come here.”

She turns around to face away from him, backing up against him reverse cowgirl-style. 

“Rey. Are you fucking serious? Turn around. Not like that.”

She turns her head.

“It’s fun sometimes,” she protests.

“Later.” His voice is serious. “Face me.”

She turns, sparking with frustration. 

“Fine.” She steps over him letting him guide her into a straddling position over his hand. He brings his other hand to her waist. 

“Don’t do that. I got this. I’m good.” 

As if to prove the point, she slides all the way down on his fingers really quickly. 

“Shit.” She winces. 

“Are you—”

“I’m fine.”

Rey closes her eyes and starts to move, rifling through her mental inventory of pornographic imagery and fantasy scenarios. Nothing’s particularly clicking.

She feels his thumb inch circle her clit and she opens her eyes. 

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll do that. I know what I like.” She touches his hand, hoping to discourage the incursion.

“Let me touch you.” 

Rey squeezes her eyes shut again, with a little huff, not admitting out loud that it feels really nice to have his fingers there. _Yes. Really good. Really…_ She reaches out for something to grab onto, maybe the bench...or a power rod. But he’s so damn wide he’s covering everything within arm’s reach. 

So she places a hand on his chest, steadying herself as she comes down hard on his fingers with every exhale. With the right combination of physical and mental stimulation, this is where autopilot usually kicks in. But it’s not happening because there’s another distraction. 

Rey feels his other hand beneath her dress, drifting over the supple skin of her belly. It’s not serving any function here. In fact, it’s taking her out of the Kate McKinnon-Taika Waititi threesome fantasy she’s rapidly conjuring in her mind. 

She opens her eyes again, intending to tell him to not to touch her like that, but he’s looking up at her with such longing and—almost—reverence that, to her own surprise, she can’t choke the words out. She stops moving. 

“Take your dress off,” he says under his breath. “I want to see you.”

The last thing in the world she wants to do is take anything else off—be _more_ vulnerable in front of him. She’s given him everything she can and it’s not enough. Why is it never enough?

She hates the way he’s touching her stomach—so gentle and soft, it actually hurts. She wants to push his hand away, stop him from pulling back another layer, leaving her even more exposed. 

But what if she could admit it hurts in a good way? What if he touches her this way until it doesn’t hurt at all? Until it feels so good and right that she never wants him to stop?

_What if?_

It’s been a long time, but Rey knows this feeling: a rushing wave of warmth coursing through her chest, smoothing over the sharp, painful edges of the wreckage left by someone else. 

She lets herself get lost in his eyes for a moment—just an experiment—letting him desire her instead of batting it away. She crosses her arms and reaches for the thin floral fabric, ignoring the voice telling her not to unlock this particular door because it will never close again. 

The truth is that she desperately wants to be seen by someone. 

By Ben. 

_Why is that so hard to accept?_

Her throat feels tight as she pulls the dress over her head, and lets it flutter to the floor. Reaching her hands around to her back, she unhooks her bra and pulls the straps from her shoulders, meeting his eye, waiting for Ben to lower his eyeline to her chest as the sheer cups fall away. With the faintest possible trace of a smile, he holds her gaze for an admirable length of time before letting his eyes track down. 

She lifts up slightly, letting his fingers slide back out so he can use both hands to touch her everywhere else. 

Ben’s forefinger strokes gently around her belly button, while his other hand starts to explore the modest curves of her breasts. 

She expects him to grab, but he doesn’t. He just lets his thumb brush across her nipples, just enough make her shiver under his hand.

Despite every stupid, uncaring, dishonest thing she’s just put him through, he still accepts her. Wants her. 

_He’s still here._

Sitting up slightly, he moves his hands to her back, never letting them linger too long in any one spot, pulling her forward into another kiss. He cups her face in his hands; she runs her fingers through his hair. It’s as gentle and tender as the rest of it has been. 

Until it isn’t. 

Until she’s biting his lower lip, scratching down his back and he’s palming her ass hard enough to leave a handprint and they’re both throbbing with the need to take this to its inevitable conclusion. 

Without warning, Ben places both hands under her bottom and stands up from the bench, lumbering forward as Rey wraps her legs around him. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to fuck you on my goddamn bed,” he says, roughly. “The first time, at least.”

\--------

The walk calms Ben down a bit, giving him a moment to rewrite how this will play out. Because Rey can’t be trusted right now. She’s too skittish, too confused about what she wants. 

He lays her down, her head just beneath the pillow, running a few kisses down her throat to her sternum. Nudging her shoulder, he murmurs for her to turn over onto her stomach. 

After taking a moment to appreciate the contours of her ass, he drags his fingers down her back as he leans over her, taking in the delicate curve of her spine, observing every tiny manifestation of her nervous energy. He moves up to her shoulder, pressing a series of kisses into the crook of her neck. She instinctively shrugs her shoulder up and turns her head, resting her left cheek on the mattress. 

“I _know_ you, Rey.” She glances sideways at him. “I want to know the rest of it. 

He finds himself saying things...talking more than he ever has in this room. Rey is quiet; for once, he’s the one who can’t shut up. 

Ben pushes her shoulder back down and gathers up her hair, winding it around his hand to give himself better access, leaning down to her ear.

“I could make you feel so good. We could make each other feel everything.” He tugs lightly on her hair. “Do you want me to make you feel good?”

She responds with a choked “Mmm hmm.” 

He continues kissing down her shoulder, taking his time, feeling the way her body reacts involuntarily in certain spots. Ben is good at memorizing these things. This is an exploration. Something to build on.

He makes it down to the small of her back before she speaks up.

“Please.”

“ ‘Please’ what? Tell me what you want.”

“Please, Ben. Just…”

_Not good enough._

“I don’t want you to _let_ me. I want you to _need_ it.” He swallows and chances it. “Maybe...beg for it. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.”

“What else?”

“I want to do this. With you.”

_That could mean anything_

“Be more specific.”

“I want you inside me.”

 _Yes_. He grabs her shoulder again and turns her over onto her back. _No hiding, no face buried in the pillow, no looking over my shoulder into the distance_. 

“I’ve been waiting eight fucking years to do this.” He holds her shoulders, eyes riveted down to hers. “I want this. Right now.” 

He feels her shudder.

The condoms. _Where?_ They should be in the top drawer of the bedside table, where he’d optimistically put them a few days after moving into the loft. They hadn’t been heard from since. There’s no reason they _shouldn’t_ be there, but, still, it seems like a stroke of good luck when they are, in fact, in the drawer, the box already opened (a rare act of foresight). 

He hesitates for just a moment, reaching for the top packet. It’s been a few years since he actually used one. And it’s not exactly his _preference_. And Rey is surely on some form of birth control. And, fuck, the thought of coming inside her… 

But that’s not going to happen right now because he can’t give her one more thing to be worried about. _No no no._ The last thing she needs to feel unsafe or worried.

Rey grabs the packet before he can even fumble with it. 

Her breathing is a little shaky as their eyes meet again. The slight look of uncertainty in her eyes is both tantalizing and unbearable. 

_Make her comfortable. Relaxed._ Despite his overwhelming desire to fuck her into his mattress immediately, her comment about preferring to be on top echoes persistently in his mind. 

He moves to sit on the edge of the of bed. 

“Come here.” He pats his thigh. “Like this.” 

Thank God they’ve been undressed for awhile, so he can focus on something other than just staring at her body. It’s a fucking wonder that he can say he’s acclimated to seeing her naked. Mostly. 

She straddles him, sitting up on her knees, giving him access to touch everything. Her breasts are perfect for him, even though she claims to be dissatisfied with their size. Making her feel otherwise could be his new mission in life. Her nipples are already hard in the cold air, but he licks and blows on them anyway, while she watches from her slightly elevated position. He likes this arrangement, with her on top, looking down at him.

Her nails dig in to his back as he takes a nipple in his mouth, biting so, so gently, just to keep her on edge, wanting more. Not running away. 

When she’s had enough of the teasing, she reaches for the condom, tearing it open easily. He looks down at her hand wrapping around his cock, stroking up and down a few times before unrolling it down the shaft. Ben puts his hands on her waist, supporting her as she slowly eases herself down. 

It’s not like she needs the assistance, but there’s something about them doing this together, as partners, that excites him.

“Breathe,” he says, not breathing. She exhales unsteadily as she sinks all the way. “Good. So good, Rey.”

His vocabulary has shrunk considerably over the last hour. 

They stay like that for a few seconds, like they’re adjusting to some new center of gravity. To say he doesn’t take delight in her shallow, shaky breathing would be a lie. 

“Don’t move yet,” she murmurs. 

Resisting every urge to do just that, he watches as she drags her knees forward, bringing their bodies closer, letting his cock nudging half an inch deeper. She runs her hand up to the back of his head and pulls on his hair to tilt his chin up. 

Rey licks up the side of his neck, along his jaw, to his earlobe and whatever she’s doing there is making it really fucking hard to remain still like this. 

“Rey…” 

She grabs his face with both hands, pulling him into a hungry kiss, taking what she wants. _She can have it all._

Then she pulls back, studying him, touching his face, his hair, running her thumb down his scar. She sees everything he loathes about himself and she still wants him. 

_It’s not too much to hope anymore._

He can’t hold back. He has to move. 

With a soft grunt, he holds her hips still and thrusts up, making her gasp. But this position doesn’t allow for what he needs to do. What they both need. 

“You feel so good,” she whispers. “God, you feel so good.”

Without warning she leans back and lets out a little groan, squeezing around him. 

_Fuck, maybe she does need a bit more of this._

He rolls his hips up into her again, watching her arch her back, breathing so hard, letting go. She lets her head hang back and he can’t help reaching for her neck, running his hand down to her collarbone and between her breasts, which shake slightly as he moves again.

“Look at us.” He moves his hand to her head, tilting it down to where they’re joined. “Don’t close your eyes. Look.”

“Ben!” She tenses around him again. 

_Dammit. That fucking does it._ He has to be on top. 

“Hold on to me,” he says, pulling her back in to his chest. She rests her chin on his shoulder, clinging tightly as he stands, and for a second, contemplates fucking her against the wall, but no. _No, it’s not the right time for that._ He turns them around, lowering her down so he’s on top, resting on his elbows. 

“Okay?” 

She nods. Looking up at him, she wraps one of her legs around his waist, pushing on his back. 

Finally, he moves the way he wants to. Not too fast, but deep. Really fucking deep in her. She meets each of his thrusts, her head just barely bumping up against the headboard each time. 

Her left hand grabs over her head at the corner of the mattress, maybe looking for something to hang onto. 

Ben grasps it with his right, intertwining their fingers. 

She can hang onto him. 

For awhile, they stop speaking. Not that there’s total silence. He’s quite happy to have only their breathing and moaning reverberate around the room.

Rey turns her head to the left, breaking the eye contact they’ve been holding. She always tries to fucking do that. _Like she wants to imagine she’s somewhere else? With someone else? Does she do that with everybody or is it just him?_

As he opens his mouth to say something, he follows her eyeline and realizes what captured her attention. 

She’s looking at their clasped hands, eyes glistening. 

The icy shard of frustration stabbing at his brain melts into warm water.

He grasps tighter. 

_She waited for this, just like you did. She wants you to to fucking take her. This fucking cock is the one she wants. She’s giving herself to you. Right now. Fuck._

He’s not going to last much longer. She seems to be nearing the edge, too. 

“I want this. All of it. Rey, I want this.”

She turns her head back up to face him, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. She lets out a sob and touches his face. 

The tears ( _of...joy?_ ) are confusing. Possibly gratifying. But women get emotional at strange times and she clearly doesn’t want to stop, so he moves her legs over his shoulders and pushes in deeper. 

“Ben...”she chokes out. 

He moves faster, losing some control, focusing his fingers on her clit to make sure she comes before him. He can already feel the pressure building. Her mouth is open, letting out an increasingly loud series of moans and nonsense words. 

“I need you to come now. For me, Rey. You’re so close. I feel it. I need to feel you come around my cock.”

She’s babbling things he wishes he could understand. He’s not making much sense either.

“ _Ben_.” He does hear that.

The whole fucking city can burn to the ground, as long as he can have this. As long as he can keep fucking this woman who wants him back. _I’m finally worthy of this._

“I knew it would be like this. I knew you were perfect for me. I knew….We can do this forever. It’ll be so good. I promise. We’re so good for each other.”

“Don’t promise anything.”

He leans down an inch closer, testing her flexibility. She’s panting, legs shaking, just on the edge. He can feel himself about to explode. 

He touches his forehead to hers. 

“You’re just scared. But it’s so good. I know you feel it. You’re so fucking beautiful like this. Mine.” _Mine._

Ben feels her clench as she cries out, pulsing around him. 

In a fraction of a second, everything tightens and releases. He feels simultaneously powerless and almighty, as he lets go, holding onto Rey for dear life.

\--

Ben can feel her drift off almost immediately. He considers nudging her. He almost never wants to talk, but he’s also never wanted to have a conversation so badly. To know the thoughts that might be running through her mind. Make sure they both understand. In case she wakes up and feels differently about everything. It’s possible. 

On the other hand, the feel of her, nestled into him, perfectly calm and trusting. Precious. That’s fucking amazing, too. She’s exhausted. Of course she would be. The brunch and the train must have happened twenty hours ago. 

Maybe he should let himself sleep, too. He could. But he won’t. He feels good so rarely. Why waste it on his unpredictable subconscious? Not when she’s clinging—fucking actually _clinging_ —to him. He strokes her hair with his left hand. 

They have each other. For real. Finally. 

\---------

When Rey blinks her eyes open, it feels like hours have passed, but there’s still some light streaming in through the sheer curtains, casting a shadow against the opposite wall, so it can’t be that late. The sun seems to set around four in the dead of winter. 

She lifts her head an inch, taking stock of her surroundings, wiping at her left eye and instantly regretting it. _Because eyeliner_. Assuming she actually remembered eyeliner this morning. 

The air in the room is drafty and cool, but the bed is warm. She stretches a little bit. It’s possibly the most comfortable bed she’s been in.

 _A bed._ Not hers. 

Just below her right cheek is a chest. 

“Hey,” a low voice says softly.

Ben.

That’s his chest. They’re naked. Touching. Naked.

The events of the day ( _shit, it’s still_ today _, right?_ ), whoosh through her mind.

The panic rises up from her stomach to her lungs to her throat, which promptly closes up. She can feel his pulse racing, too. 

Oh, and she’s apparently been lightly drooling on his chest. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, swiping her hand across it, as if he hasn’t noticed it yet. “How long was I asleep?” 

“Twenty minutes.”

“That’s _all_? God, it felt like hours.” 

“You must have been really worn out.” 

She finally looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“Did you fall asleep, too?”

“No.” 

_Of course not._

“Did you at least have your phone? For something to do?”

“It’s in my coat.”

“Or a book?” 

“Not within arms reach.”

“You should have gotten up.”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Did you just lie here, watching me drool for twenty minutes?”

“Well there was also some quiet snoring and even a little bit of talking. Very entertaining.”

“I don’t do that, but nice try.”

“My arm is asleep though, so maybe we can…”

“Oh my God.” She pushes back, closer to the left side of the bed. “Seriously, just roll me over. It’s fine. I should pee anyway.”

Standing up, she feels very...exposed. And cold. It’s freezing everywhere but under the covers. 

“Do you have a shirt or something I could put on?”

“No. I don’t.”

She exhales and waits for him to relent and point to a drawer. 

He doesn’t. He’s almost smiling. It’s kind of makes her want to throw up. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, rushing to the bathroom. 

It feels safe in there. Still really cold, but mercifully private. She checks the status of her face and hair in the mirror. Neither are positive. _What does it take to find eyeliner that just fucking stays?_ She throws her hair back into a bun.

After she pees and washes her hands with the kind of fancy soap one would find next to Ina Garten’s sink, she finds a towel (of course he keeps multiple clean towels in here), sets it down over the freezing tile and just sits for a few minutes in the quiet. 

_Leaving right now is an option. Probably the best one._

It’s one thing if it’s _just sex_. That’s a compartment. It has a label and a lid and a compactor that pushes everything down.

Every so often when she feels ragey, or like she can’t stop crying, the compartment explodes and litters the other spaces in her brain with the little bits of guilt and regret. She takes a day and cleans everything out and the process starts over again. 

The weed helps with that. Dulling everything until it’s manageable. 

But she doesn’t have any right now. In fact, she’s never felt more stone cold sober. The weak mimosas must have been consumed by muffin carbs hours ago. Any sex-related high she’d felt in the last hour has dissipated amid the dawning reality that Ben is not her “friend” anymore. 

There’s no way around it: it hadn’t been _just sex_. Rey is almost certain she’s never used the term “making love” before; her stomach tightens, just thinking it silently. 

She cried. She fucking cried. Cried while he declared things to her. _Embarrassing_. She’s never cried like that. Not with Amilyn or anyone. And she’d had several borderline-religious experiences with Amilyn. 

The best thing to do right now, is leave the bathroom, get dressed, tell Ben something innocuous and open-ended like “I need some time to think,” and get the hell out of there. 

Yes. Because even if this were to be a thing— _were, WERE!_ —it would be terrible to rush it. Actually, that is a perfect innocuous thing to tell Ben. 

Satisfied with this plan, Rey stands up, carefully folds the towel again (assuming Ben won’t mind that her ass was on it for three minutes), and exits the bathroom. _It would be terrible to move too fast_. _Let’s not rush into anything_. And...

The walk to the bedroom is really short, so there’s no time to think of a third variation. 

Ben is still in bed. It’s probably warm under the duvet.

And she realizes she didn’t come up with the beginning of the little speech. _Shit_. She stands in the doorway, mouth open, no words emerging, except for, “Um…”

_Clothes?_

She peers out at the rest of the loft, where some item of clothing must have fallen...her dress, a bra? Didn’t those things come off in there? 

Nothing is on the floor except for Ben’s coat. 

“Looking for something?”

She steps back inside the bedroom. 

“My clothes.”

“That’s odd. Weren’t they on the floor out there?”

“Yes. Strange how clothing keeps disappearing in this apartment. All of your shirts and now my dress?”

“Why do you need it?”

“Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time in here today? I should give you your space.”

He tosses a soft white ball of something at her, which she manages to catch at the last second. 

“I found something for you to put on.”

A balled up pair of socks.

“Ben.”

“I don’t want space. I’ve had space. My whole life, people have given me space.”

“We shouldn’t—” _Shit, what were the phrases?_ “—rush into something that…”

“Rush?” He sits up. “It’s been building up for months. You don’t have to have to deny it anymore. You told me when we met again....any other time you’d be asking to come up here. So we waited. And now it’s another time. You’re up here. We had sex. So where are you going?”

“I’m not good at this. It’s not personal. I just don’t do it.” 

“No, Rey. We’re not going to pretend this didn’t happen. Not this time. You understand that, right? We already crossed that line, you’re not going to move it again.”

She stares at him, waiting for a good argument to form in her exhausted brain. Nothing comes. 

“Put the socks on and come back to bed.” 

_Why is this harder than everything that came before?_

“We can just...watch a movie. In the same room.” Ben genuinely wants this post-coital togetherness. It’s too much to face head-on. 

She downshifts into humor, which is manageable. 

“You know I don’t watch movies naked.”

“Put the socks on then.” 

_Fine._ It’s afternoon anyway. Not like spending the night. It’s just a giant couch.

She sits on the edge of the bed and pulls the enormous socks on. He owns tube socks that are more expensive than her “nice” socks and possibly some of her shoes.

Instead of walking around to the left side of the bed like a normal person, she awkwardly scoots backward on the mattress, realizing halfway to the headboard that this isn’t exactly the most alluring, nor effective, set of movements. A perfect example of why she never gets _back_ into a bed. Once all the tension is gone, you’re just two naked people sitting there like nervous idiots.

A large pair of hands grabs her around the waist and pulls her the rest of the way back. It happens too fast for her protest. Ben opens the covers so she can slide in. It’s blissfully warm. High thread-count sheets. Like being in a very nice, austere hotel. 

She’s careful to situate herself with at least a foot of space between them, covering up her breasts with the sheet in the weird way that women are always doing in movies. 

_Don’t think about his hands_. 

He picks up the remote, turns on the TV and scrolls through Netflix. Rey looks through the screen, into the middle distance, an awkward silence hanging like a cloud over the room. Or perhaps that’s a fancy Japanese diffuser. 

“ ‘Feel Good Reality TV’ is one of your top categories?”

“It’s a notoriously bad algorithm.” He continues scrolling. “Everyone knows that.”

“Do you also watch Bob Ross to relax?” He passes over something insane. “The fuck? Stop—stop!” she yells, grabbing the remote. “ _Jeopardy_ is on Netflix? Do people binge _Jeopardy_?”

He turns his head and gives her the mildly annoyed kind of look he reserves for when she has a stupid idea that he only pretends not to like. 

She launches it before he can complain.

“Oooh, the tournament of champions. Netflix is not fucking around with this.” She tosses the remote aside instead of setting it on the nightstand. “Care to make it interesting? One correct answer, one point?”

“Why is it always a competition with you? Let’s just watch a movie.”

“You’re afraid.”

“You do this when you get nervous.”

“Do not.”

“And I have a PhD.”

“Maybe. But I have an advantage because the categories are always puns.”

“We’ll see.”

Alex Trebek introduces the three contestants. 

“What stakes?” 

They study each other’s faces for a long beat, Ben raising his eyebrows ever so slightly.

Rey nods. “Ok. Let’s do this.”

 _“Let’s try GINGHAM STYLE for two hundred.”_

_“It just isn’t this outdoor event without a red and white gingham check tablecloth—and the ants.”_

“—What is ‘picnic!’ ”

“—Picnic!” 

“Nope, form of a question, Ben. We cannot accept that.”

“What a stupid fucking category,” he mutters.

“ _From the Greek for six.”_

_“This adjective, found before ‘school’ or ‘knockout’ comes—_

“What is ‘technical!’ ” Ben shouts.

_“—from the Greek for ‘art.’ ”_

_“Greek for eight.”_

_“Appropriately, this synonym for ‘abyss’ comes from the Greek for ‘yawning hollow.’ ”_

“What is ‘chasm?’ ”

“ ‘Yawning hollow?’ ” she asks.

“Keep up.”

Predictably he sweeps the Greek category, although Rey does well with aerospace puns. The Double Jeopardy categories smack of cultural elitism (“Literature,” “World Geography,” “Islands”) which only benefits Ben, who spent years in academia and has probably been to multiple islands. 

_Amilyn likes to go to St. Croix._

The thought floats to the top of her mind like a bright red balloon escaping some little kid’s hand. Just...out of nowhere.

Rey isn’t quite as quick on the draw after that, but by some stroke of luck there’s a category called “Stay Woke,” which turns out to be sleep puns and she makes a small comeback. It’s close until Final Jeopardy. And, of course, the category is “Philosophy.” 

“Ah, fuck me,” Rey whines. A beat passes. “Say it and die.”

Ben wagers all twenty-eight of his points. Rey wagers five of her twenty-three. 

_“Despite the title, in this Plato work, Socrates says, ‘I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”_

There’s no paper in the bedroom, so they agree to just say an answer when the _Jeopardy_ music stops. Not that it matters, because the only Plato work Rey can muster is _Republic_ and there’s no way that’s correct. 

She pouts silently while the music plays, blaming Amilyn for somehow intruding on this and distracting her, despite also being the one who left. 

The music hits the last three beats. 

“What is _Apology_?” Ben says without hesitation.

“We were supposed to answer together.”

“You didn’t know the answer was _Apology_?” 

“Shut up.” 

“So, I guess that means I beat you soundly.” He looks at her for a long moment and there’s a palpable shift in energy. 

“What? _Now_?”

He shakes his head. 

“No, I’ll be claiming my winnings later.”

 _Later_.

“It was luck.” Something beyond the window curtains catches her eye. “Hey. I think it’s still snowing.”

Ben shifts closer to the left side of the mattress—not _her_ side, just the regular left side—as she scoots out of the bed and over the window. She draws back the curtain, watching the snow float down from the darkening sky. 

Rey doesn’t mean for him to follow her to the window, but, of course, he does. 

He’s warm though, brushing up behind her, grazing her arm with his knuckles.

“It’s pretty. Like a screensaver,” she observes.

His mouth is on her neck, hands making their way up her belly, to her breasts and back down, lower. Apparently all the tension isn’t gone. There's still a knot, maybe a new knot, pulling taut and then slack. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to leave. And she has to be the one to leave. 

And yet…

They’re reflected in the window pane, juxtaposed against the snowy scene outside. It looks nice. It doesn’t look like two depressives bonding over shared loneliness and coping mechanisms. They could be any normal couple. Maybe they could take trips to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and walk around the city holding hands and share boozy brunches and fuck all afternoon. 

This goes wrong one hundred percent of the time. _Until the one time it doesn’t._

But maybe it doesn’t matter yet. She kind of wants to stay here, for a little while, in this bubble. 

And be naked  
...and warm  
...and touched.  


\--------

An hour later, Rey stirs out of the lazy half-sleep they’ve been indulging in. 

“I’m hungry.”

“Shocking,” he mumbles

“I put one of the brunch muffins in my bag,” she says, slipping out of bed from under the duvet. 

“We can do better than that.”

“You’re gonna cook something?”

“No, we can just go somewhere.”

“You mean, leave the apartment?”

“Why not?”

Ben’s not totally sure why he has this particular desire. It’s fucking freezing and snowy. Yet, the thought of taking this _thing_ they now share outside the walls of the loft is strangely validating. 

“Does this mean I get my clothes back?”

“No, you’ll just be wearing the socks.”

“Ben, seriously, where’s my shit?”

“Your dress is covered in drywall dust. We should wash it. Do you want to borrow something?” he asks hopefully. 

“I thought you didn’t have any shirts.”

“I have the perfect thing.”

\--

Rey looks a little ridiculous in his knotted Radiohead t-shirt, her tights, and his bright red Adidas jacket, hanging down to her mid-thigh. Cute though. Really fucking cute. _Mine_. 

“What I wouldn’t give for a pair of Paige’s pants right now.”

“No one will know you’re not wearing pants once you put a coat on.”

“You’re sure you don’t just want to order something?” she asks, pulling on her boots. 

“No, we can go to Veselka.” 

“Okay, whatever. You’re being weird.” She looks at one of the boxes of books next to the drafting table. “Oh hey, we could take some of these over to Strand. Sell them back? I was meaning to do that.”

“My grandfather’s books?”

“Were you going to keep them?”

He considers what Luke said last night: his slight irritation at Ben doing away with his father’s belongings. 

“No. Let’s sell them.” 

He calls the elevator as she wraps her scarf around her neck. Watching her, he can’t help racing twenty steps ahead, thinking about how many times they’re going to get dressed to go get dinner. How wonderfully unsurprised her friends will be when she tells them about their status change. How he’ll finally make his mother happy and proud about any aspect of his life. He elects not to think about the Han issue. 

When they get outside, it’s still snowing lightly. The streets are relatively quiet. They walk up Lafayette, each carrying a few books. He’s not wearing his gloves; she’s not wearing her mittens. Maybe it’s a sign. He grabs for her hand.

She pulls away instinctively for a half second, but he holds on, placing both of their hands in his coat pocket. Rey gives him a cautious look, but she intertwines their fingers anyway.

They only break the hand holding when Rey playfully kicks a snow drift and a rat runs out. She screeches and takes off for half a block before stopping. 

“How long have you lived here?” he shouts. “Don’t you know never to kick a snow drift or a leaf pile? Anything could be under there.”

“I’ll just never get used to the rats.”

“Rats are the real New Yorkers.”

They join hands again.

\--

Rey insists on stopping into a deli for a black and white cookie. She could probably eat the whole thing, but they share it, breaking it in half so that each of them has both vanilla and chocolate. She tells him a story about getting trapped in the restroom at the Kmart across the street from Cooper Union. He points out the restaurants and stores that used to be something better. It’s the same fucking thing they’d be doing anyway. There’s absolutely nothing different about his God-forsaken waste of a life since yesterday, except for _this_. 

When they get to Strand, they learn that the book selling desk is closed on Sunday. It’s the type of minor inconvenience that would normally send Ben in to an internal rage spiral. ( _Why didn’t I check? Why did I schlep all these books for no fucking reason?_ _Why the fuck can’t I do anything right anymore?_ ) But he finds himself not really caring this time.. 

“We can just carry them back home,” Rey offers. “Bring them in another day?” He only hears one word, which is “home.” 

He piles them on one of the dollar book carts outside. It’s freeing. But Rey wants to go inside and look for a book about space for Alice, so they spend some time wandering down the aisles, picking up more books than they came in with. 

_Paige never wanted to come here. Except maybe to take a selfie._

_Paige never would have worn his clothes. Especially not the tracksuit jacket._

_Paige hates Veselka. And Odessa. And Little Poland. She’d want to pick a restaurant from the Eater Heat Map._

He waits for Rey on the stairs down to the lower level. She’s found one more thing and he doesn’t really mind that she drops another heavy book into the basket he volunteered to carry back when they were only buying two books. 

“It’s about Prince,” she explains, as if that justifies its mass. “I just want to find a space book and then we’re good.” They make their way down the steps. “I have this vision of a whole space-themed birthday basket with lots of little gifts. Like maybe I could wrap them up in a way that represents each of the planets?”

“Sounds ambitious.”

“Aren’t you some kind of gift wrapping prodigy?”

 _Already roped into helping with a project?_ Ben’s heart fucking sings and he’s never even met this kid.

He takes the last step down to the floor, making them the same height. 

“Are you still hungry?”

“Am I ever not hungry? I love brown comfort food.”

An obnoxious kid screams in the background.

“So you still want to go for dinner.”

“Well, I didn’t get _less_ hungry if that’s what you’re asking. You don’t want to eat a bunch of pierogi? It was your idea.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see a tall lady chasing after the screamer, with another child in tow.

“No, I’m hungry, too. Just not for pierogi.” 

“Goulash? Stuffed Cabbage? Kielbasa? So many things to choose from. All very filling. Or were you talking about dessert?” 

There’s a mischievous glint in her eye. Rey tilts her head to the right, parting her lips, and they kiss in a way that’s certainly not appropriate for the children’s section. 

“I still have winnings to collect.” 

“I was promised multiple orgasms over any surface of my choosing.”

“Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t fucking believe I haven’t eaten your pussy yet.” 

Maybe not the right thing to say in quite so loud a voice. Because the tall lady stares at them. _Does she have purple hair?_

“Rey?”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \----
> 
> Asdjfksdjg;ldag
> 
> Don’t worry, I have a lot more free time now and the update won’t take nearly as long!
> 
> Maybe now it’s clearer why I wrote [shameless holiday porn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16745386) in between chapters. I had to get it out of my system to let these two have tender feelings with their smut. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to [ delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum), for listening to my idea, reading it first and not thinking I was crazy to try smut with feelings. 
> 
> [Veselka](https://www.veselka.com/) is a place you go when you’ve left the bar or club or whatever at 3 am and you need some Eastern European carbs. Odessa and Little Poland are somewhat similar but more old school. 
> 
> [Strand](https://www.strandbooks.com/) is an amazing and famous bookstore near Union Square where you can easily kill a few hours. Pro-tip: I consider it to be a pretty great date location.
> 
> The Keanu GIF truly IS inspirational and I’m personally offended that tumblr doesn’t want me to reblog it regularly.
> 
> Oh and [the black and white cookie](https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/pax7gg/the-real-history-of-black-and-white-cookies). If you’re not familiar, you should know that it is the quintessential New York cookie. My boyfriend bought one when we were back in the city last month and I looked at it and thought: Yin-Yang? The Jedi symbol? Dark and the light? REYLO? So the black and white cookie is now this story’s official icon.


	15. All Night Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unwelcome interruption. A breakdown. A mess. Some clean up. And then...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not many notes this time, but I will say that your perspective on the previous chapter will probably color your feelings on this one. It's so, so cool to hear everyone's takes. There's a scene-long reference to Chapter 4, so if you want to refresh the text/notes parts, that's a thing you could do (but it's not essential). 
> 
> I made a short [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VWPjdO6bhjgCU2sXCuyw1) for this chapter. Originally there was some diegetic music, but I ended up cutting those sections out. A little of it lives on in the playlist, though.
> 
> Huge thanks to [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum) for giving this a much, much needed beta read and cracking me up with her reminders about the fact that I rarely mention — well I better not point it out before you read. This chapter would be far too long and ten times as confusing if not for her and I hope you are reading her [snowed-in cabin fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991454). 
> 
> And check out the way Selunchen [ beautifully colored the gorgeous art I linked last week](https://twitter.com/selunchen/status/1074311345120702464). I *may* have printed this out, framed it, and looked at it while writing this chapter.

Holdo is intimidating at first. She exudes a quiet, devastating confidence as she lectures on civil procedure to a classroom full of privileged, ignorant bros. Her long, slender fingers are adorned with elaborate rings with big stones, like she spent time in Sedona or some place where tourists buy crystals and get their auras read. She’s unlike any lawyer Rey has ever seen. And her accent. Southern? Texan? There’s something about the way her voice wraps each word in a slightly unexpected vowel sound. Rey is fascinated. Inspired. Turned on. It’s not specifically sexual. In the beginning. 

Nothing happens until the semester ends. (Lesson learned.) She visits Amilyn’s office (she calls her “Amilyn” now) several times for career advice. A recommendation letter. Mentorship. After the third office visit, they go for a drink. And then they go back to Amilyn’s apartment.

It’s refreshing not to be the aggressor. Sometimes it’s so freaking difficult to actually hook up with girls. It’s kind of a revelation to be seduced by another woman. An experienced woman. It’s like exploring a new country. A new planet. Special. Chosen. 

For awhile, it feels wonderfully illicit. Then it morphs into something more secure, which is nice, too. It’s the first time Rey has felt safe, in so many ways. Within a few weeks, she has a drawer, then a slice of the closet, then a bookshelf, until they have a home together, like they’re embodying some outdated lesbian joke. If it’s too rushed, it doesn’t matter because there’s no parent to disapprove. She’s never had anyone to disappoint, except herself. 

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t see it coming, even though none of her friends are terribly surprised when it happens. Maybe that’s why she has blind faith in their ability to communicate openly and honestly after a year of couple’s therapy and all those goddamn mirroring exercises and “I statement” conversation templates. 

Maybe that’s why she feels stung—no, stabbed—in the fucking heart when Amilyn casually hires movers instead of trying to explain any of it. She just leaves. Rey doesn’t cry until she hears the elevator ding from down the hall. 

 

* * *

 

“Rey?”

Ben has only seen a couple pictures of Amilyn. He might have Googled her once. Maybe looked at her Instagram feed a few times. So he knows it’s her. But he probably would have understood without the visual confirmation, because Rey’s face changes—falls, really—hearing her own name. 

Neither of them look over right away, almost like they’d rather not break whatever spell they’re under by acknowledging the tall, purple-haired elephant in the room standing six feet from the stairs.

“ _Rey?_ ” She’s a bit more insistent now, tugging on a little girl’s hand.

Rey finally turns her head and opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. 

“How are you?” Amilyn is slender, impossibly tall, almost regal in a long coat with her hair done up in some kind of elaborate style. She drops the girl’s hand and moves past Ben— _displacing him_ —to embrace Rey, whose arms remain tightly at her side. 

“Fine. I’m fine.” 

Amilyn stands back, hands still on Rey’s shoulders, taking her in: smudged eyeliner, messy bun, clearly not wearing her own clothes, or actual pants (for which Ben now feels slightly guilty). 

Objectively speaking, it’s not the way anyone would care to run into their ex-wife. Still, he can’t help but feel a tiny bit triumphant at how obviously he’s in the picture. 

“I didn’t know The Resistance worked on the Ocasio-Cortez campaign,” she says, eyeing Rey’s bag. “Congratulations, hon.”

_“Hon?” What fucking right—_

“We didn’t. I’m...just a supporter.”

“Oh. I am, too. Gave the maximum. Look.” She takes her bag off her shoulder. It’s the same one Rey has. “I use it for the kids’ stuff. I never realized how many things they need. And it’s never too early to teach children how to take down the capitalist heteropatriarchy.” 

She looks squarely at Ben as she says it. Smiling.

“This is Olivia.” Amilyn grabs the girl’s hand again, pulling her forward. “Sheldon’s granddaughter.” She places her manicured hand on top of the little girl’s head and nods at the boy, who’s still screaming. “And that’s Aiden. We’ve been having a day in the city together. Giving mom and dad a break.” She pauses. “It’s been really wonderful. But maybe an hour too long.” She glances back at Aiden, who’s now pulling books off the shelves. “What was your favorite part of our day, Olivia?”

The little girl squirms before shyly whispering, “Ice skating.” She twists around and hides behind her pseudo-grandmother. 

Ben waits for Rey to say something, maybe introduce him, since Amilyn had the courtesy ( _audacity_?) to introduce two tiny, barely verbal humans before properly meeting the other adult. But Rey is frozen, staring at the little girl. She’s maybe four or five? Could be seven. Ben is no good at determining the ages of children. He nudges her gently. 

Still nothing. 

“Ben,” he says, finally, extending his hand. 

Amilyn regards him with a steely, even gaze, tilting her head slightly, the faintest hint of another smile forming at the corner of her mouth. 

“I know who you are,” she says. _Fuck, that’s never good_. She steps forward as if to demonstrate that they’re approximately the same height. She grips his hand firmly, her chunky rings pressing uncomfortably into his palm.“No A.O.C. tote bag for you?”

Ben glances at Rey for any kind of clue as to how to manage the situation, but she’s not even paying attention. She just stares at the kids, brow slightly furrowed. 

“Not my district.”

She smiles again, moving slightly closer to Rey, subtly (or not) boxing Ben out of the conversation. He reprimands himself for letting her take control this way, as if he’s no longer standing there.

“Did you happen to read the books I left?” she asks her quietly, initiating a private conversation between the two of them. “ _Daring Greatly_ changed everything for me when I felt stuck.” She glances at Ben and then back to Rey. “I really recommend it.”

Ben waits a beat for Rey to fire off an angry retort, just as she had when she’d discovered the books.

“I—no. I didn’t read it,” is what comes out of her mouth.

“When are we getting _ice creeeaaaaam_?” the little boy whine-yells from two aisles away. “You saaaaaiiiid.” The two women continue to look at each other, despite the interjection.

“One minute, Aiden!” She touches Rey’s shoulder. _Again_. “Did you ever meet with the therapist? Like we talked about?” She’s speaking just above a whisper, but Ben can hear every word. He grips the handle of the basket almost hard enough to break it. 

Again, he waits for the bomb to explode; she can have until the count of three to tell her ex to _fuck off_. 

_Three..._

_Two..._

“She doesn’t need your help.” 

They both turn their heads, as if he interrupted _their_ moment. _Is it possible that Rey looks embarrassed? Instead of grateful?_

“Old habits, I guess,” Amilyn says, still holding onto her shoulder. “If you need anything…” 

_What the FUCK? What happens when she needs something? Who does she call? Who picked up the fucking pieces? Fuck this presumptuous—_

“Ice creeeeeeaaaam!” Little kid number two comes charging between them on his wheelie sneakers, shattering whatever moment Rey and Amilyn were sharing. 

“Okay, Aiden. Up the stairs, you two. And wait for me at the top!” She turns back to Rey. “Shel really spoils them. You can’t even imagine.”

Amilyn gives Rey’s shoulder a final little squeeze as she moves to climb the stairs. Ben is about to let himself breathe out, when she pauses and turns around, her face just a few irksome inches above his.

“Ben...I’ll give you a tip. You should really _start_ by eating pussy. It shouldn’t be an afterthought.”

 

 

After Amilyn climbs up the stairs behind the two little gremlins, the shock of the whole encounter wears off into something more familiar. Sharp. Sinister.

Three things cycle through his mind. 

First:  
_It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair. They haven’t even been out in the world for an hour_.

Second:  
_How dare this fucking bitch—it’s not misogynistic to call a woman a_ bitch _if it’s_ true _—put him on the defensive when_ she’s _the cheater?_

Last:  
_Rey said_ nothing _. Nothing to counter any of it._

“I’ll just look for the thing,” she says, once her ex is out of earshot, heading over to the picture books with an urgency that indicates he’s not supposed to follow. 

Once again, he’s the outsider. 

No outburst. No argument. No refusal to listen to Amilyn’s condescending bullshit. No trace of the animosity he _knows_ she’s felt for months. 

She’d passively absorbed everything that came out of that woman’s mouth. The false comfort, the supposed kindness, even the judgment. 

_She looked humiliated to be seen with him._

Once that thought pops up, there’s no pushing it down. It spins around and around, rewinding, playing back again. 

When she walks toward the stairs again, holding a book, her face is expressionless. 

“Should we check out?” she asks, voice carefully modulated in that indifferent tone that drives him fucking insane. 

He holds the basket out so that she can drop the new book inside. Instead she sticks her hand in and grabs the books she’d previously added, forming a little stack in her arms. 

It’s fucking affronting. _Don’t you divvy up the books at the_ end _of a relationship?_

But maybe this _is_ the end: a relationship that lasted the length of a walk from 4th Street to 12th Street.

They walk up the stairs and silently join the checkout queue, paying separately. 

She finishes first and waits for him just inside the front door, staring off into the middle distance. Not even looking him in the fucking eye. Treating him like a Tinder hookup. 

He fights an impulsive urge to blow past her and out the door in a dramatic, satisfying exit. Maybe she’d remain stuck in this strange catatonic state, helplessly watching him go. Maybe she’d run after him, or shout his name into the freezing night air and he’d walk south without stopping or looking back.

Maybe he would just leave her here, alone.

The thought makes him feel sick. 

There’s a good chance, despite whatever the fuck just happened downstairs, she’s still hungry. _She’s always hungry._ If he sticks to the script, some normal activity—something they do all the time—could stabilize the situation. 

Maybe once the shock of seeing her ex wears off she’ll remember _anything_ that happened ninety minutes ago. 

So that’s the plan. 

But he’s also fucking _petty_ , so he mirrors her indifference right back at her, zipping up his coat and barely pausing in front of the door.

“Food?” he offers, half-heartedly. 

She nods with the same level of enthusiasm. 

 

 

The walk down 12th Street is quiet, just the sound of their boots on the wet sidewalk. It must have stopped snowing while they were inside, leaving the once-pristine snow to melt into dirty slush in the Manhattan foot traffic. 

Veselka isn’t very crowded. Maybe it’s the weather. Only the die-hards are out tonight.

They sit at a four top, across from each other. It’s too much space. If they _were_ talking, it would force them to speak a bit too loudly. But neither of them say anything. Rey’s foot taps on the black and white checkered floor as she looks at the menu. For several minutes.

“You’re not getting the meat plate?” he asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Strand.

“I’m not that hungry.” 

He’s _never_ heard her say that. 

Ben had wanted to come here because it’s homey. Unpretentious. Always open. Carb-heavy comfort food. A warm, Ukrainian blanket of a diner where he’s ordered the same thing for thirty years. They were supposed to be enveloped in some kind of soft, hazy afterglow right now.

 _It’s not fucking fair_. 

When the waiter returns, Ben orders matzoh ball soup and potato pancakes, same as always. Rey decides on a fucking salad, which is somehow the most insulting thing she’s done all day. With the menus gone, they sit in continued silence: Ben looking at Rey and Rey looking anywhere but at Ben. She continues to tap her foot, her refusal to acknowledge him keeping his anger at a low boil. 

He waits for her to say anything. 

Always waiting. Forever waiting for her. _Still_. 

_Fuck waiting._

“Can we talk about what just happened?” 

She finally meets his gaze. 

“If you want,” she says flatly. _If_ you _want._ Like this is for _his_ benefit.

“Are you okay?” He keeps his tone steady and unemotional. Like hers. They could be two chatbots exchanging pleasantries. 

“Oh, yeah, perfect,” she replies, letting a drop of sarcasm through whatever filter she’s using on the conversation.

“Really?” 

“I’m fine. It had to happen at some point, right? It’s a city of eight million people, why wouldn’t I happen to run into my wife?”

“Ex-wife.”

“I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for it happen, dreading it. And it happened.” She sips her water. “She’s in the running for almost-step-grandmother of the year and I wasn’t wearing _pants_. And that’s fine. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“ ‘Fine.’ Got it.”

“Great.” 

Her foot taps harder. A distraction in the form of food can’t come fast enough.

“It’s okay to be upset,” he says, attempting to be magnanimous. She picks at the corner of the table. 

“Well, I wouldn’t want to ruin the dream date you insisted on,” she says, punching the words with a shot of venom that fucking _stings._

 _She’d been enthusiastic, hadn’t she? After some initial nerves and awkwardness? None of it was one-sided._ _She_ cried _._ But he can’t tell her he’s hurt, so now it has to be an argument. That’s how pride works, apparently.

“You said you were hungry.”

“I could’ve eaten the muffin. We could’ve had something delivered. I could’ve gone home. You pushed this on me.”

“What did I push on you?”

“Really? The hand holding and the cuddling and dressing me up in your clothes and walking to dinner in the freezing cold so you can live out this stupid fantasy where I’m your girlfriend.”

The word lingers in the air like smoke coming from the barrel of a gun. 

“That’s not true.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“You were practically begging me to go down on you two seconds before your ex showed up.”

“You started it.”

“You could have just shoved me down the stairs, it would have been subtler.”

“ _That’s_ why you’re mad? Because I panicked and didn’t know how to explain who you are to me?” Heads start to turn towards their table as the volume of the argument increases. “Sorry if I was distracted for two minutes by the person who shattered my _fucking heart_.”

She’s on the verge of breaking and he should probably back the fuck off. The tone of the argument reminds him far too much of the fights from twenty years ago he couldn’t block out with headphones. But he can’t stop pushing. 

“Who _am_ I to you? If you couldn’t explain it to her, then explain it to _me_.”

The waiter chooses this particular moment to bring his soup and her salad. 

Rey sits back in her chair, taking her elbows off the table. She looks down at her lap and it seems like she might not answer at all. The heady flow of adrenaline that was coursing through his body a few seconds ago starts to dissipate into something like dread. 

She picks up her fork and pokes at the salad.

He realizes he doesn’t want to hear the answer to that question. 

Rey looks up. He can see her wet eyes from across the table. Her shoulders start to shake.

“She was taking care of kids, Ben.” Her chest heaves and she can’t swallow down a sob. “She has a fucking family now.” Two more whimpers and tears start to fall. “I was s-supposed to be her family. She just left and got a different one. I don’t understand. She said I was all she needed. I don’t get how a person does that. We—we _loved each other_.”

Her face crumples; in a second, she’s full-on bawling into the salad. 

In another timeline, Ben jumps out of his chair and rushes to the other side of the table. He embraces her hunched shoulders and whispers soothing things into her ear. 

But in this reality, if he comforts her now, she’ll stop talking. Her words feel like they’re being unearthed from some deep hidden place with which he’s all too familiar. He’s logged enough hours in therapy to know that therapists don’t hug you and tell you it’s going to be okay. They mostly sit silently and watch you break down until you hit bottom. 

Of course, they’re not usually in love with their patients. 

“You don’t just”—she chokes on a sob—“stop loving s-someone. Even if they destroy you.” Her breathing stutters. “I hate myself for it.”

Ben remembers the first three years of the separation, when Han would come back sometimes, unannounced. Things would seem okay for a day or two, just enough time to believe he might stay. 

“I can’t even bring myself to yell at her.” She speaks rapidly, like the thoughts are transmitting, unfiltered, from her subconscious. “We never even fought about it. I just watched her leave. I stood there like a fucking idiot. Just like today. She _knew_...she knew it would break me. To be left like that.”

He’s pieced together a picture of Rey as a small child, slowly realizing how long her parents have been gone. It’s based on the little scraps of memories she mentions in passing, because she’s never actually shared anything more than that. They’ve told each other every other stupid fucking thing, but never the crux of it.

She pushes the salad to the side and lays her head down over her arms and continues to cry. 

There’s a lump in his own throat watching her melt down. He instinctively reaches out his hand to touch her head and pulls it back, still unsure whether he has an actual role to play or he’s just a witness. He settles for moving his foot so that it pushes gently against her shoe. She's not tapping against the floor anymore. It takes a minute before the crying jag subsides and she’s calm for a few seconds at a time.

Ben slowly slides his bowl of soup across the table in front of her. 

Rey lifts her head up. She’s red in the face, cheeks damp, what’s left of her eyeliner streaking across her temples.

They look at each other and it seems like she might lose it and cry again. But she sucks in a breath, picks up the spoon, and bisects the matzoh ball.

“Thank you,” she mutters, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Jewish penicillin,” he says. “It cures anything.”

“Think it does any of the stages of grief? Because I’m about to round the corner from denial to anger.” 

“No." He collects a thick stack of napkins. "You have to order the borscht for that.”

She lets out something between a laugh and another sob. He passes her napkins and she blows her nose and takes a few breaths.

“So that was Amilyn.” She puts the spoon to her mouth and slurps. “She has this way of getting under your skin.” 

_That’s one way to put it._

“My impression was more...narcissistic hypocrite, but I’ve only listened to you complain about her for several months, so...”

“She’s a very good attorney.” She takes another slurp of soup. “I _never_ won an argument with her.”

“Would you take her back right now?”

“No,” she insists. “Of course not.” She slices down the matzoh ball again. “I’m positive my rage will continue to take over my body and I’ll cry more and feel empty inside thinking about her stupid grandchildren. And then I’ll smoke a bowl and eat a bunch of weird flavored chips and go to sleep and the next day, it’ll be fine. If you stick around for a few more hours, you’ll get a front row seat for the whole process.” 

An hour ago, Ben would not have predicted that the fact that they had sex would literally be the last thing on her mind. 

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I don’t want to be. Alone, I mean.” She looks up at him with fresh tears pooling in her eyes. “I can’t go back to my apartment now. I just can’t.”

“Well, I don’t have a supply of weed or disgusting snack foods, but I know something that might make you feel better.”

“You do?” 

“To release some tension.” 

“Jacking off?”

“Not quite.”

 

* * *

 

Rey stands in front of the wall, Ben hovering behind her. He touches her shoulder. 

“You can yell. Sometimes it’s cathartic.”

He holds out the sledgehammer in front of her. It sinks down heavily in her hand. He steps back.

“You know this isn’t the right way to demo a wall, right? We should get a reciprocating saw and a pry bar.”

“It’s a glorified closet. The wall is like paper. And it feels fucking good. Just try it.”

She never does this kind of thing. It’s wasteful. Self-indulgent. Destructive. She's never had enough disposable stuff to ruin.

Rey stares at a particular spot, smeared with a charcoal pencil mark. She conjures up her idea of this therapist, jotting down notes in some kind of fancy blank book with a hard cover. A referral from a friend of a friend of Amilyn’s. In other words, part of the grand conspiracy to get her to admit to a stranger—an objective professional—that she’s broken. 

It would prove something. _See? This is why I had to leave. You can’t make a life with someone that damaged. So much worse than I thought._

People don’t just leave out of the blue. There’s always a reason. _Just a symptom that something else is wrong_. Isn’t that what Poe had said? 

She pulls the sledgehammer back, squeezing her eyes shut. With a grunt she swings for the pencil mark, smashing through the drywall. She opens her eyes. Ben’s right. It almost tears like cardboard. Drywall dust is everywhere. 

“Well?”

Rey doesn’t answer. She just finds another stained spot on the beige wall and takes another backswing and sends the head of the sledgehammer through the wall. 

After the third hole, her arms are tired and she drops down to sit on the floor, arms around her knees, facing her handiwork.

“Feel better?”

She scans her body, like she’s pretending to participate in a guided meditation at a yoga class. 

“It was pretty satisfying in the moment. Now I just feel kinda dumb.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mention that part. Sometimes it helps just to unload.” She feels his heavy footsteps behind her and a hand brushing the top of her head. “You’re covered in dust.”

“It got you, too.”

She looks up. He’s a giant from this angle. 

It’s almost disappointing that he’s still being kind, even after everything came pouring out in the restaurant. It would be easier—definitely less confusing—if he didn’t leave himself open like this. 

“This is how you unload?”

“I thought I grew out of it.” He sits down next to her. “Apparently I didn’t. Works better than the breathing exercises.” 

“It looks...fresh.”

“Yeah.” They stare at the ruined wall for awhile. “Han lived here, you know.”

“What?” Rey glances at him, surprised that he would volunteer anything about his father.

“When he and Leia were separating, divorcing, whatever. When he wasn’t on the road he lived here. They called it his ‘workshop’ but he’s the one who turned this into a bedroom. I guess he didn’t want to stay in my grandfather’s room. I hated coming over here. Teenage me would have given anything to put a hole in this wall.”

He works his jaw. She slides a little closer to him, so their knees almost touch. 

“Is that what this was about?” she asks, nodding at the damage.

“No.” Ben turns his head. “To be fair, the list of potential provocations for me destroying a wall is longer than it should be.”

“Am I on that list?”

“I have other ways of dealing with my frustrations about you.”

For the first time since they left the bookstore, she feels the knot tightening again. 

Rey looks down and nudges him with her shoulder, thinking of her morning routine in which his voice is prominently featured. 

“Same.”

She holds her breath.

He leans toward her, brushing her cheek with his thumb, letting their lips almost touch. Lifting her chin slightly, she closes the gap, giving him a soft, lingering kiss. 

When they pull back, a puff of drywall dust floats between them. Rey looks down and sees just how filthy the shirt and jacket have become...which doesn’t bode well for her face. 

“God, I’m a mess.”

“A nice mess. My mess.” He sweeps his hand across her forehead before planting a kiss there. “You’re really dirty.” 

“We both are.” She cannot help but add, “Not in the fun way.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of driving me insane.” 

“We should do something about it.” 

 

Rey stares quizzically at Ben while he demonstrates the complex system of turning each of the knobs by half degrees and then waiting out the cold water for three and a half minutes until the hot comes back again.

“You know, I could probably take care of this for you. So you wouldn’t need to enter a locker combination every time you want to shower.”

“I’m used to it. And I mostly shower at the gym anyway.”

“Yeah, why make any aspect of your life slightly easier?”

He holds his hand under the faucet for a second.

“Okay, it’s back on a hot cycle. You should get in. You have, maybe, nine minutes.”

“Showers really shouldn’t be this stressful.” She pulls off the red jacket, now covered in patches of fine dust. It’s easy to fix with a plumber wrench. _It would be a nice courtesy for the next girl you’ll have over_ , is a thought that intrusively pops into her mind.

“I’ll just…” Ben nods toward the door. 

“Oh. Okay.” 

He glances back at her before disappearing through the door, shutting it with a click.

Rey can’t tell if she’s surprised or relieved to be alone. Her actual emotions don’t feel like they’re under her control anymore. It’s like she can only handle whatever is directly in front of her in the present moment. Everything that came before—Amilyn, the scary relationship activities, the sex, the argument, fucking _brunch_ —needs to get locked away and dealt with later. 

She quickly strips everything off and carefully steps over the lip of the clawfoot tub. It could do with a refinishing, but it’s a nice piece. 

For someone who mostly showers at the gym, Ben keeps a lot of “product” in a Restoration Hardware-looking looking metal basket thing attached to the side of the tub. She picks up one of the bottles while the weak stream of water rinses the dust out of her hair. 

“ ‘Russian Leather Bath and Shower Gel,’ ” she reads. “The fuck?” 

For a shameful second, Rey considers stealing the bottle of Aesop “Calming Shampoo,” before deciding that Ben definitely needs it more. 

She’s efficient, but the water starts to run lukewarm and nine minutes goes way too quickly when you include shampooing, conditioning, and emergency shaving. Reluctantly, she steps back out, wrapping herself in a giant bath sheet (bless Ben for being too large for regular-sized towels). 

It’s still steamy in the bathroom, so she lingers, poking around at the medicine cabinet and various grooming products, all neatly organized. She grabs a wide-tooth comb from a tray next to the sink and runs it through her wet hair a few times before replacing it, just slightly askew. He would pretend not to like her using his things. While really, _really_ liking it. 

She could share-steal his nice artisanal stuff. Slowly bring her necessities over, a couple things at a time. Maybe mingle her Costco-Kirkland face wash with his… “glycolic facial cleanser.” That’s how it starts, anyway.

Rey re-wraps the towel a little tighter and opens the door, letting the steam escape. Ben is just outside, loading clothes into the washing machine. 

“The ultimate luxury is not having to drag your laundry bag down the block.” She leans over the beige 1980s washer to peer inside. “Is my dress in there?”

“I usually send my laundry out. And yes.”

“Of course you do. You’re the one person in New York with a washer-dryer and you’re still paying someone else to do your laundry?”

“It comes back neat and folded. But I assumed you wouldn’t want to wait several days to get dressed again, so I thought I’d do a load now.”

“Yes. Do a load now...so I can get dressed again…” She bites her lip.

“You really never stop.” 

“And you always walk right into it.”

“How was the shower? Did you make it out in time?”

“Nine minutes is a lot faster than it sounds.”

“It’s a good argument for baths,” he says, measuring out the liquid detergent into a little cup. 

“Yeah it’s much easier to just sit in a tepid pool of soapy water indefinitely than just, you know, fix the problem with the shower.”

“I haven’t taken a bath since I was...five? When do kids stop taking baths?”

“You mean you don’t regularly sit in the tub for several hours and read trashy young adult romances while listening to guilty pleasure music? Because, personally, I wouldn’t know anything about that, but it sounds very relaxing. You should try it.”

“I keep all my young adult romances on my iPad.” He shuts the washer lid.

“Yeah, that’s a recipe for disaster in a tub. Maybe just a copy of _The Economist_ , then. A little light reading.” She leans against the wall next to the laundry. “I’m serious. It’s the most soothing thing known to woman. We could transform the bathroom into a sanctuary.” 

“Rey—”

“Hey, I tried your method of stress management. You have to try mine.” She takes a step back toward the bathroom door. “I’m filling the tub.”

 

After pushing Ben into the bathroom and closing the door, Rey goes into the bedroom, ostensibly to look for something to put on besides a giant towel, but also to snoop casually and freely. Sliding open the mirrored wardrobe door, she’s surprised to see a few non-black shirts hanging amid the sea of darkness. _Does he just keep them in here just in case?_

The closet smells like him. Not that she consciously notices how he smells. It’s not a scent she could name, but she recognizes it. Probably something along the lines of “camphor” or “sandalwood.” _Heaven forbid men smell like flowers._ The gender normativity doesn’t stop her from breathing it in, though.

She certainly doesn’t spend five or six additional minutes exploring and examining the contents of the drawers. _Nope_. 

Everything is neatly folded, even the underwear. 

_Shit_. 

She already wore the pair from the potential-sex tote bag.

 

 

After hate-watching an episode of _Riverdale_ and eating half of the leftover brunch muffin in bed, Rey puts on his Smashing Pumpkins shirt and the smallest, stretchiest pair of his underwear she could find in his closet, and knocks at the bathroom door while pushing it open. 

She can’t see anything interesting from this angle, except that he’s reading something and the tub can’t quite comfortably contain him. _So it definitely can’t contain both of us._

Shaking that thought out of her brain, she walks over to the faucet.

“Can I pull the plug? You’ve been in here for a really long time. And you should be entertaining me. I’m your guest.” He tosses his magazine onto the floor. “Plus, it’s not good for your skin,” she adds, assuming that vanity will take precedence over leisure. 

“I assumed this _was_ a form of entertainment for you.” He squints at her. “Are you wearing my underwear?”

“What makes you think I didn’t have a spare pair of men’s briefs in my bag?”

“I wish that didn’t seem plausible.” 

“If it offends you, I’ll buy you a new pair.” The looks on his face indicates that it clearly does _not_ offend him. She looks down at the magazine on the floor. “This is the trashiest stuff you could come up with? Do you actually read your _New Yorker_ s?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Same. Of course. Every week.” She sits on the edge of the tub, being careful not to glance _too_ obviously into the slowly receding water. “So do you feel relaxed?”

“I did until you drained the tub and started looming over me. Is this the point in the long con where you murder me for the money I don’t have?”

“The bathtub _is_ a perfect location for a crime with a lot of blood.” 

“Yeah, this is a very relaxing conversation.”

Her eyes linger a few seconds too long as the water level drops...and drops. He seems to notice. 

“Let me get you a towel,” she says, jumping up quickly.

 

Rey hadn’t pictured him getting out of the tub when she suggested the bath. 

_No._

The sight of him, somehow more massive than before, dripping wet...it’s doing things to her brain. She’d meant to just hand him the towel and leave, but she finds herself hanging on to it, rubbing it over his skin. She could probably be more thorough with the actual drying.

He doesn’t say anything, but his jaw moves like he’s choking back words. 

She’s offering; he’s accepting. And she likes it. Touching him, feeling him tense and ease as she moves her hands over him. Powerful and a little submissive at the same time.

She folds the towel to form a square and drops it on the ground at his feet, Not really thinking it through, but knowing, on a gut level, it’s what she wants. There’s something intoxicating about being in control of such a large person. _God, the thought of making him fall apart_ _and watching it happen._

He’s been so fucking patient today, despite her flailing insanity. _This can be his reward._ Like a gift. If she can’t quite bring herself to give him everything he thinks he wants, she can at least give him this. 

Angling her head up to look up at him, she presses her lips to his chest and slowly lowers down, trailing her mouth down his stomach and her fingers down his back. There’s so much of him that she didn’t even explore earlier.

As she’s about to drop onto her knees, he catches her by the elbows and pulls her back up.

“Bedroom,” he utters suddenly. “I’m claiming my winnings.”

“That’s what I’m—”

“Come on,” he says, grabbing her wrist and leading her, a bit roughly, through the door. “I’m not fucking around with you in bathrooms anymore.”

 

 

He pulls her into the bedroom, so they’re standing in between the foot of the bed and the wardrobe. His hands immediately migrate under the t-shirt, tugging it over her head and onto the floor. 

_For a naked blow job? Men are so predictable._

Her stomach tenses up in anticipation of him pushing her back down to her knees. But he doesn’t.

Instead, _he_ kneels in front of _her_ , kissing down her stomach, and she’s standing face to face with her own reflection in the mirrored wardrobe door. 

“Put your hands on the mirror.”

“I thought...your winnings?”

“Put your hands on the mirror, Rey.”

She stares at the reflection, recognizing exactly what this is, but not quite believing it. 

“I don’t like watching myself.”

“I don’t care.”

She places her palms against the mirrored door. Her stomach knots again as he yanks the briefs down. As soon as she steps out of them, he lifts her left thigh over his shoulder, and she knows exactly how the narrative will unfold. She’s practically had it memorized for the last four years. 

All of her weight is on her standing right leg and it shakes hard before he even does anything but breathe. He’s not even close to her clit yet, just running his hands up the backs of her legs to her ass and gripping tightly. He works his mouth up her inner thigh, skipping all the way up to her lower belly, coaxing a frustrated moan out of her...a second and third time, until she whines. 

He gradually moves in closer, but just not _there_ and he’s obviously reveling in making her ask for it. She squirms to reposition herself, seeking out some kind of friction, but he holds her in place firmly. 

She hates being the recipient of this kind of edging. _Hates it_. 

“Ben!”

“Mmmhmm?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Mmrrmmhhm?”

“I do this to other women. It doesn’t work on me.”

He murmurs something inaudible and the vibration feels really fucking good. 

“You can move on!” She yells at his reflection.

He doesn’t; instead, he laughs into her. _Fucking laughs_. Another good sensation. _It’s sadistic._ The tension stretches in her belly and isn’t even close to breaking. 

“Ben!” she yells louder. 

If their previous encounter today felt like it existed in some kind of strange, dreamy haze, this one happens in auto-focus. Each precise movement activates a hyper-specific response. 

He’s purposeful this time, almost strategic. The louder she gets, the closer his tongue inches to the exact right spot. 

“Fuck, yes. _Yes_. Please.” She takes a guess at what he wants to hear. “ _Ben_.”

One of his hands lets go of her ass. He shifts position slightly and she feels him slowly push a finger inside her. Her left leg kicks softly at the mirror. Then another finger. The new, sharper sensation mingles with the slow steady build. 

“Oh God. Ben.” She’s practically grinding on him, clutching at his head. He steadies her with his other hand. 

His mouth hovers over her clit. 

“ _Ben_!” 

For a split second, he backs off just a touch, like a pianist dramatically taking his hands off the keys for a beat, and Rey feels her body revolt in frustration. Although she’s played the whole scenario out in her head on occasion—in the abstract—this is so...fucking...real.

_God dammit._

Fuck being at someone else’s mercy—the sort of thing she doles out to other people. It’s so much easier to be the one in control. 

But her heart is pounding out of her chest and she’s throbbing with the anticipation and maybe she kind of _loves_ this? From him? 

She feels his tongue almost zero in on the precise spot where she needs friction. _Really, really needs it._

“Aaaahhhh...oh _shit._ ”

It’s like a bass drop. There’s too much at once and nothing to ground her. Her fingers grabs for any kind of purchase on the smooth surface of the mirror. There isn’t any. Her right leg is useless; she might as well be standing on a patch of fog. 

“Jesus fucking Christ don’t stop.” 

She doesn’t sink, though. Ben has a hold on her body that should feel precarious, but it’s not. Like he could lift her off the floor without messing up his rhythm. 

She’s vaguely aware that her moans have devolved into full-on yelling, but it sounds like it’s coming from someone else’s throat. As if the two people in the mirror she can’t quite bring herself to look at are the ones doing this. And her good friend isn’t giving her some of the best head of her _life_. 

This can’t last too much longer. She squeezes her eyes shut. Each breath gets shorter and more ragged. 

“Oh God. Oh God…”

He’s laser-focused, not moving from this particular spot, just slightly to the side of her clit, like he’s still holding back the tiniest little bit before nudging her over the edge. 

Opening her eyes, she forces herself to look at their reflection—how tightly he’s gripping her, his enthusiasm, how _gone_ she is. 

Fuck pride. She’s more than willing to give up this tiny slice of control and then beg him to give it back.

“Ben! Pleeeeease. Let me come. Please. Ben! _Ben!_ ” 

A distant male voice from another apartment yells _“Shut the fuck up!”_

She doesn’t. She actually gets louder. 

It seems to spur him on. Ben sucks on her clit, digging his fingers into her ass cheek in a way that will definitely leave marks. 

He’s drunk on this, she feels it. Everything falls into place the way he promised. 

Ben groans into her and the tension climbs and tightens until she can’t take it anymore. Her palm bangs against the mirror. Rey lets herself go with a cry, tensing around his fingers, grabbing at his hair. Her body floods with something that feels like pure, liquid pleasure and she wrings out the last drop of it. 

 

* * *

 

Rey is still panting above him. Trembling, really. 

She’d been fucking loud. _Really loud. For me._

He could have come just from hearing it. It’s a fucking miracle he didn’t. 

Her eyes are still closed. He wants to see the moment she opens them: when she looks down and sees him. When she acknowledges the way he intuits exactly what her body needs, not just what she says she wants.

If he didn’t care so much about seeing it for himself, he’d still have his face nestled between her thighs. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you were so good at that?” 

She’s staring up at the ceiling. Naturally. Because why should he ever get exactly what he wants?

“You probably would have tried to organize a competition between the two of us.”

“Still could…”

He moves his shoulder so Rey can set her other foot on the ground, but she sinks to the floor in front of him, like her legs aren’t quite working yet, so they're kneeling in front of each other.

“I missed out on months of this,” she says, closing the small gap that separates them. Her eyes flick down to his lips.

“Years, really.”

“It’s upsetting.”

The corner of her mouth curves into the faintest of a smile. She tilts her head and leans in just enough for her lips to graze against his, inviting more if he wants it. And _obviously_ he wants it, but it’s nice that she still wants to keep up this pretense in which everything is still a tiny bit uncertain.

Ben sucks her lower lip into his mouth and she surges forward, pressing her breasts against his chest. ( _I neglected them, fuck_.) Her hands move to his waist...and then below as she opens wider to deepen the kiss. He responds by pushing in with his tongue, needing her to taste herself (she doesn’t seem to mind _at all—so fucking hot_ ), but his attention is divided by her fingers rubbing tantalizingly close to his erection. 

Just as he grabs for her hands, intending to helpfully guide her in the right direction, she pulls back slightly. 

“I still owe you your winnings,” she says.

“Already got them.” She rolls her eyes. “But what else do you have in mind?”

“Stand up,” she orders. 

He complies without hesitation. He’s never stood up faster. 

Picking up exactly where they left off in the bathroom, she takes his cock firmly in her left hand and lowers her head slightly to lick his balls. It’s an unexpected move, maybe, but clearly not an unwelcome one. 

His hip bumps against her forehead as he jerks forward involuntarily. She digs her nails into his back with her right hand. 

She spends a little more time there, as he tries and fails to remain still. Tilting her head to the right, she moves her tongue against the underside of the base of his cock, giving him the smallest little taste of what’s to come. Looking for the edge and pushing him right up to it. A bit of retribution perhaps.

Making very deliberate eye contact, she slowly drags her tongue all the way up his length. 

“Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

He watches her swirl her tongue under the tip of his cock, letting his precum smear her lips, saving the image for later.

She starts to suck, sloppily, working her way down, at a steady pace, as slow and drawn out as she can manage...down a little bit more each time and sucking hard as she draws back up. 

It’s warm and wet and so fucking tight and he just needs to hold out a little bit longer. 

He looks down at her, on her knees, as much as he can stand. Sometimes he stares up at the ceiling, taking deep inhales, when it’s getting to be too much, unleashing the occasional stream of limited-vocabulary sentence fragments. 

She hums into his cock and his hands automatically move to her hair, which is still a little damp from the shower. He could grip the back of her head and fuck her face. It’s tempting. That’s _definitely_ a thing he could do right now. But he doesn’t push. It seems important to let her be in control. So he just touches her head, stroking her hair, encouraging. 

“Fuck. Just like that. So good. So fucking good.”

As she gets closer to the base, he feels her start to gag slightly. Which, if he’s honest, is kind of doing it for him. 

“Relax your throat. You’re so close. Fuck. Almost there. Just a little more.”

God, he just wants to push that last inch. _Fuck._ If she only she knew the kind of restraint he’s using.

She breathes and pushes forward, still gagging a little bit. Almost there. _Almost._ He feels a spasm in her throat and she backs up, coughing. 

“Am I too big for you?” He’s been wanting to utter those words for _years_. It’s a question that’s been lying dormant forever, just waiting for the appropriate time to be spoken aloud to someone. 

“Let me try again.”

_Who knew that flattery and disappointment could mix so well together?_

An idea floats into the part of his brain that’s still functional. Floats or maybe explodes like a confetti bomb.

He pushes himself back on the bed, almost to the headboard. 

“I’m not finished yet,” Rey protests from the floor.

“No. You’re not.” 

She climbs up after him.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Face the other way. Better angle.” 

She raises her eyebrows. 

“Better for who?”

“It’s ‘for whom’ and the answer is clearly _both_.” 

“I like the way your mind works,” she says with a sly smile. “Occasionally.”

“Why take turns?” he reasons as she wastes no time turning around to face the foot of the bed, straddling his chest between her knees. 

“It’s a really distracting position,” she points out. He grabs the outside of her thighs and pulls her back slightly, straightening her legs a bit.

“Yes it is.”

“Patience...is not your strong suit.” He feels her breath over the head of his cock, like she’s waiting for him to get situated.

“I’m a very selfish man.”

He bends his elbows and wraps his arms around her hips, digging his fingers into the bottoms of her ass cheeks, biting at the roundest part, experimentally.

This angle is... _something else._

He goes straight for her clit this time, knowing that he’s too fucking close to the edge to draw this out. Naturally, this _would_ turn into some kind of competition over who can stay focused and hold out longer.

A moment later, her mouth slides steadily down, down, down his length and her lips almost hit his groin.

_FUCK._

She stills. He holds his breath. 

Her mouth goes a fraction of an inch lower and he can’t help but push up the tiniest bit. 

He can feel the tip of his cock nudging against the back of her throat. No gagging this time. Apparently this _is_ a better angle. 

It’s tight and deep and she’s moving up and all the way down every time and... _God fucking dammit, it’s almost impossible to not to move_. When she hits the bottom again and starts humming, he know the edge is rapidly approaching and he remembers that he needs to get her off first. 

With a renewed sense of determination, he focuses on making her come again, holding nothing back this time, fuck the teasing. After that, he can finally—

_You’re going to come down her throat. Yes. It’s happening. She’s a good girl. She’ll take it all...always so fucking hungry._

He pulls her back toward his mouth for a breath, then she pushes forward and down. They figure out the rhythm and repeat it over and over. Like a simple, flawless machine, both of them working in tandem.

 _There’s no way this isn’t right. This proves it. This fucking_ proves _it._

She increases her speed and the soft humming turns to moaning; he adjusts to her pace, feeling himself start to lose control.“Distracting” is an understatement. 

_What a fucking stupid_ and _amazing idea this was. We_ fit _together. We literally fit together._

By the grace of some (probably female) deity, Rey comes hard with a shudder and he grips her firmly as he feels his balls tighten. With a groan, he releases into her mouth, feeling her swallow twice, maybe three times. 

_No one on the fucking planet has ever been more perfect_. 

It’s the last thing that runs through his mind before his head hits the mattress.

 

* * *

 

Ben is dead to the world for awhile. 

Rey puts the t-shirt back on and wanders out of the bedroom for a glass of water.

The toolbox is right there on the floor, next to the kitchen. Maybe it’s a sign. She grabs it and heads into the bathroom. 

It’s a thing to do. 

It only takes a few minutes to fix the water pressure and it’s nice to definitively solve something. The entire day has been like wading through a ball pit with no exit. 

Returning to the kitchen, she chugs a glass of water and picks up her tote bag, intending to check messages and maybe scavenge for food in the fridge. He always has good leftovers.

Peering into the fridge, she reaches for a container labeled _RED CURRY_ in annoyingly neat handwriting. She imagines him finding a marker and carefully writing out a label every damn time he orders takeout. She imagines them sitting in the kitchen, arguing over whether to mix the curry with the coconut rice. She imagines lying on her back, gripping the edges of the table while Ben has her legs on his shoulders, the curry congealing on the counter.

She imagines Ben waking up alone and assuming she left. 

He’d realize she didn’t _leave_ -leave in another minute. Even so, she puts the curry back and hurries back into the bedroom on the off chance that he wakes up before she could scarf down another meal. 

He’s still sound asleep. Obviously. 

With a sigh, she digs her phone out of the bag and sits down on the edge of the bed to tackle the lock screen full of notifications. 

 

Another GIF from Poe and then 

Poe DAMNeron  
  
**Poe:** Confirmation that you’re not dead plz.  
  
I’m alive btw. I’m LIVING.  
  
Pretty glad you didn’t come over actually.  
  
(Poe: Eggplant Emoji )  
  
But yeah, let me know if you’re in a sex coma or trapped under something heavy.  
  


She taps out “all good,” but doesn’t elaborate. Let him wonder for another twelve hours.

 

Finnnnn  
  
**Finn:** Sup? U ok? Poe said you’re not answering.  
  
**Rey:** coolcoolcool. Tell ya later.  
  


 

 

Leia Organa  
  
**Leia:** Rey, I thought of a couple more candidates you should definitely meet. Emailing you now. I’m so happy Ben has such a *good* friend.  
  
(Leia: Wink Emoji )  
  


 

God, she’s really trying. Rey winces thinking about what she just did to her son. 

She composes a bland, but thoughtful response: “Thank you so much for everything! Had a lovely time.” 

_Heh._

_Shiiiiiiiiiit._ Tinder Snack. She completely forgot to cancel. Seven increasingly irate messages. Without opening them she clears each one and puts the phone down on the nightstand. 

It seems to imply that she’ll be staying. 

 

 

Ben wakes up fifty minutes later as the episode of _The Innocent Man_ is ending. 

“I thought you finished _Making a Murderer_.” He rubs his eyes, sitting up on his elbows to look at the TV. 

“I did. This is a new one.” Rey shoves the last bite of the brunch muffin into her mouth.

“ _Are_ you going to murder me? Because I’ve felt safer. And I’ve been fucking slashed.”

“The thing is, I’m learning a lot about how the _wrong_ way to murder someone.”

Ben shifts suddenly, running his hand across the sheet beneath his back. 

He looks down.

“Poppy seeds? You ate a fucking _muffin_ in my bed?”

She looks down at the scattered pile of slightly stale crumbs on the mattress between them. 

“No?”

“Are you trying to get me to kick you out?”

“I got hungry! It’s fine. Look, I’ll brush the crumbs right off.” 

Rey hops up and scrapes the visible crumbs over to the left side of the bed and into her hand. 

“See? No harm done.”

“I have to change the sheets now. God help you if any crumbs made it to the mattress pad.”

He starts to get up.

“Ben, wait! I know what we need. We have the perfect tool for this.”

That evening, they discover that the Dust Daddy does not deliver on its promises. 

 

 

After they change the sheets, Rey waits for Ben to complete his nightly routine. His “beauty regimen.” (“It started when I was on camera all the time. Now it’s just habit.”) 

Elaborate grooming rituals are probably a thing he and Paige bonded over. And probably a thing Rey will tease him mercilessly over. She has no plans to apply any serums to her face. 

After he ( _finally_ ) finishes in the bathroom, Rey brushes her teeth with the lifesaving travel toothbrush she keeps in the tote bag. Because there’s no _way_ they’re doing the “brushing our teeth simultaneously” thing like a married couple on a sitcom. 

It’s hard enough just thinking about sleeping here. Like, _physically sleeping next to him_. 

There are reasons not to:  
Her dress is almost dry.  
She has work in the morning.  
And she hasn’t _slept_ with anyone since Amilyn. 

It’s scary how familiar it all feels. This is the good part. Things happen fast and everything is exciting and _right_ and it doesn’t seem necessary to keep herself safe. But the bad part will come soon enough. It always does. 

She’ll be smarter this time. In the morning. 

The lights are off in the bedroom except for a softly glowing lamp on the nightstand. Even in the relative dark, she can tell that Ben’s face floods with relief when she re-enters the room. She could disappoint him all too easily now.

“Tired?” she asks, walking around to left side of the bed, wishing it wasn’t her regular side and didn’t feel so normal. 

He doesn’t say anything, but Rey isn’t looking for an answer. They can read each other perfectly: her anxiety over sleeping here, coupled with his concern over her anxiety, plus his own anxiety, mixed with a dash of hope. 

Peeling back the covers, she carefully slips between the fresh, crumb-less sheets. _God, this really is like a hotel_. She sits upright, because...which way is she supposed to lie down? Back? Side? Is this how cuddling starts? Will they discuss it first? 

“Take this off?” he suggests, pinching the sleeve of the t-shirt. 

_Oh_. 

She exhales and lifts the shirt.

“So, I have to get up kind of early—”

As soon as the shirt is over her head his mouth is on her shoulder and moving up along the pattern of nerve endings around her neck. Not aggressively. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world and they do this all the time. 

He eases them both down onto the pillows, kissing up her jaw and behind her ear. 

_It’s so, so easy to sink into it._

_Too easy._

He rolls one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

“Ben...”

“This doesn’t have to be…” He lifts his head directly over hers, starting again. “I’m not pushing. Just don’t dismiss it right now.”

“I think...we should take it slow.” _We got along so well until we kissed_. 

“Rey—”

“I rushed last time, okay?” 

“—this is different.”

Except, it’s not different at all. All relationships start this way. And most of them end. 

“You could hurt me," she says. "We could really, really hurt each other.” 

“Do you think I don’t know what it’s like to be hurt? My whole fucking life is one goddamn painful incident after another. You’re the only good thing I have.”

She could raise serious objections to that statement, but she doesn’t. Instead, she lets herself be kissed again and believe that it’s okay. More than _okay_. He makes her feel better than she's felt in a long time. Not everything needs to be litigated tonight. 

 

 

Rey is a lot more comfortable with the sleeping together and cuddling if she’s the big spoon. As she has long suspected, Ben seems perfectly content being the smaller utensil. They turn off the lamp and it’s dark and quiet (Manhattan quiet). 

“Why did you need to unload on the wall?” she asks, gently scratching up and down his back. It’s the kind of reassuring gesture Amilyn used to do. 

She imagines him frowning, a deliberation playing out across his face, trying to determine the extent of his openness in this new iteration of their relationship.

“Luke was here.”

“Luke?” She pulls her hand away for a moment. “Skywalker?”

“Yeah. Last night.”

They haven’t talked about Luke in what Rey considers to be the “modern-era” of their friendship. Or whatever it is now. It’s one of those topics they both know not to mention, even though neither of them has made that request. 

He doesn’t elaborate. 

“Luke just showed up?”

“He owns half the loft. I guess he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Like he always has.”

She doesn’t want to read more into that comment, but she does. He continues:

“He wants to buy my forgiveness. That’s what it comes down to. I’d call it a mid-life crisis, but he’s too old for that.”

Rey had been under the impression that _she_ was part of his mid-life crisis. _Don’t think about how old he’d be now_.

“Why does he need your forgiveness?”

“He never told you what happened?”

“I knew you had a—a difficult relationship. He didn’t tell me the details. It wasn’t really that kind of...thing.” Ben stiffens and she instantly regrets adding that last bit. 

But he does seem to like being touched. She threads her left arm under his and around to his chest. 

“Do you want to tell me?”

He’s quiet for awhile, but Rey is good at waiting. She draws gentle circles on his chest, in a way she hopes is soothing. Amilyn never seemed to need that kind of thing.

“I wasn’t taking my meds because I had this idea that the manic episodes were helping me. I’d feel powerful and unstoppable at first, like every thought was some incredible insight, but I was actually writing gibberish and jumping from one thought to another.”

She’s careful not to stop moving her hand. Stopping would mean that there’s something wrong. 

“Okay.” 

“I had a confrontation with Luke three days into an episode. I told him I was going to report him for misconduct. Because of…”

“Oh.”

“I raged at him. Fucked up his office. He claimed that I made ridiculous threats. I don’t remember it clearly. But I just...I can’t believe I did.” 

She doesn’t want to picture any of it, but it’s hard not to. 

“He called the Dean. Said I was a danger to the campus and myself. There was an investigation. He rescinded some of his accusations, but the whole thing destroyed any chance I had at a tenure-track position. Anywhere.”

“That’s why you left?”

“He still claims he was trying to ‘help,’ whatever the fuck that means. But I know he discredited me so I couldn’t report him. I’m sure of it. The fact that he’s offering me money is just more proof.”

His tone is bitter in a way that she hasn’t heard in him in awhile.

“Were you...raging when you made the holes in wall? Was that an episode?”

“No. I haven’t had one in a long time. I’m on my meds.” He lets out a breath that’s somewhere between a huff and a sigh. “I was just fucking pissed and I needed to break something.”

It’s not exactly comforting. Or unfamiliar. A few snippets of bad childhood memories bubble up to the surface before she can punch them down.

“I’m sorry,” he says, apparently reading her mind in the silence. “I haven’t talked about it. Except with my therapist.”

“Paige?”

“She knew I left Chicago but not why.”

She presses her body into him and he squeezes her arm into his chest. 

“I’m glad you told me.” It’s a thing you say to reassure someone, but sometimes it’s not strictly true.

Neither of them speak and the sound of distant sirens and random street noise rises to the foreground.

“Rey?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

_This is why I don’t do this. This is exactly why._

Maybe because his vulnerability makes her want to give him something, she picks the worst thing in the world to admit to him.

“You know how I said I hadn’t done missionary since high school?”

“You lied?”

“ _That’s_ the conclusion you jumped to?”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t lie to you.”

“I know. Keep going.”

She takes a breath and recomposes herself.

“I haven’t had sex with a man—like, full-on, you know...vanilla, whatever—since before I was married. Until today, I mean.”

“What?” His head whips around and she feels him try to turn over completely, but she pushes back. 

“Don’t...just don’t move, don’t make a big deal about it.” But she can already tell he’s making the biggest possible deal about it. “I had a ton of sex before that.”

“I thought you had an open marriage.”

“We had boundaries. It didn’t include sex with men.”

“But the Tinder Snacks?”

“They’re just snacks. And mostly women.” 

Neither one of them say anything for a few seconds and she can practically hear his brain processing. 

“Did I...hurt you?”

“Jesus!” She punches him in the arm. “ _No_. God, men and your fucking egos. I have a dildo collection.”

“You could have told me. Before. I would’ve gone slower—”

“Ben, stop.”

“Can I _please_ turn around?”

“No. I mean it. Penises are not the be-all, end-all of sex, okay? Don’t make too much of it. It’s not a big deal. It’s like, a fun fact. Forget I said anything.” 

He lets out the world’s biggest sigh. 

“A fun fact.”

She swallows.

“It was just...a lot. You know? Kind of overwhelming. I don’t mean physically. Like, the whole thing. It meant something.” He pulls her arm tighter against him. “Well, maybe it was physically overwhelming, too. A little bit.”

“I’ll take it.”

She smiles at the semi-satisfied tone of his voice. She may have slightly exaggerated the coughing and gagging, earlier. As a kind of gift to him. Compared to women, men are so _easy_ sometimes. 

She presses her nose against his shoulder blade, snuggling deeper under the duvet.

“The confessional is closed.”

The Manhattan quiet seems to get a little louder. Closing her eyes, she breathes steadily into his back as they both drift into sleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted a "deleted scene" section of this chapter [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313878). There was a much longer scene with the bathtub that I lifted out because this chapter just got to be unmanageably long. But if you're into more conversation and hair washing, check it out. 
> 
>  
> 
> Well. I tried to give you some stuff to chew on. Let me know your thoughts/head canons/aggravations. I live for your comments and anon asks. 
> 
> Thanks for your patience as I take forever to write these chapters.


	16. Policy of Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all. It's been a hot minute, so:  
>  _Previously on Doing the Unstuck:_  
>  Our dumb-dumbs ran into Amilyn and no one felt great about it, except maybe Amilyn. There was some fighting and crying and overall poor communication, but eventually they got it together and got it on again. Rey did some internal monologuing and then she spent the night and they both got a little bit more vulnerable. 
> 
>  
> 
> **And now...there's always a morning after. [cue ominous music]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks ago, I added an extended/alternate scene from the last chapter in the series for this fic. It’s basically a section I cut from the last chapter (rightfully) because it was too damn long and didn’t advance the plot. But if you’re into gratuitous hair washing and more of these two space idiots talking, [check it out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313878). 
> 
> Speaking of this fic being too long, you might notice that the chapter count increased (it should be around 23 chapters, but something got messed up and now it's a question mark). Let me explain why. 
> 
> When I initially wrote out my chapter outline, I actually used a beat sheet from When Harry Met Sally. But I never accounted for the aspects of the story that I added (and obviously, at this point, there are a lot) and it also just takes longer to write out scenes in prose. Something that’s two minutes of screen time can take ten pages when you need to describe things. 
> 
> Secondly, the last few chapters have taken a while to update and they’ve also been quite long because I’ve been trying to pack in all the things I need to pay off before the end. But it’s becoming unsustainable for me to write and edit these over-stuffed chapters. (And yes, I realize this is my own damn fault.) I’d much rather have a few more shorter chapters and update more frequently, as both a reader and for my own sanity while writing. 
> 
> So, it’s not that I’m going to write more words, it’s just that they’ll get split up into shorter, more manageable chapters. 
> 
> That said, this chapter still ended up a bit long, but the first half of it is...well, I hope you’ll forgive me because I’m probably going straight to hell. I should warn you, there are quotes that involve comedic descriptions of man+unicorn relations. If you don't want to be subjected to it, you can skip over the italicized parts at the very beginning. 
> 
> Thank you to the ANGELS of this fic, [delia-pavorum ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum) and [selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/). They both have WIPs right now that you should subscribe to immediately.

“ _All my life, I had only found myself attracted to woman_ —yes it really says ‘woman’— _but the second that I laid my eyes on this handsome unicorn, something changed deep within me. This mysterious sailor beast had a hold on my heart, and now there was no going back_.”

Rey nestles deeper under the covers, weirded out by the strange, beastial turn this dream has taken. Was she on a beach before? She could have sworn she’d just been sitting in a junior high classroom, about to look down at her— _surprise!_ —naked body, while surrounded by fully-clothed classmates. Because that’s how all her school-themed dreams conclude. 

“ _The unicorn looks up as I make my way down the dock, smiling as our eyes meet_.

‘ _Hey,’ I say, stopping in front of the handsome nautical beast, my heart pounding hard within my chest._ _‘What’s your name?’ ”_

 _The fuck?_ Usually her dreams aren’t narrated in the first person; the deep voice is an interesting creative choice by her subconscious. She buries her face in the pillow, trying to force her mental image from full-unicorn to something more centaur-like. _But if he's a man on top, where would the horn go?_

“ _‘Hunter,’ the unicorn says. The second that we touch, a sharp chill runs down my spine, a signal that something is happening here way beyond a mere chance meeting. This is special._

“ _It’s not long before we are seated at a nearby restaurant that overlooks the San Francisco bay. Being a unicorn, Hunter has ordered a large portion of hay, which he munches on happily. I lean back in my chair and smile._

“ _‘Is it weird how comfortable I feel around you? I feel like I’ve known you my entire life._ ’

“ _The unicorn stops chewing, renegade straws of hay dangling from his lips. ‘No, I feel it, too._ ’ ”

Nope. Definitely not a centaur. The lucid dreaming techniques aren’t working to turn this into something more palatable. There’s a large hand— _hand, not a hoof, thank God_ —against her upper back. In the dream. Or maybe not. Wouldn’t she be wearing a shirt in her waking life? 

“I’ll just skip ahead a bit to where the unicorn goes to sea and sends him erotic letters.” It’s the same voice, but a different tone. More casual? And why is Ben in this unicorn dream? 

_Jesus Christ_ , how much had she smoked last night? 

“ ‘ _I want you to give yourself to me, wholly and completely,’ ”_ the deeper voice continues, “ ‘ _so that I can fuck your brains out._ ’ ”

Sometimes, when her sleep cycles get messed up, Rey finds herself trapped between her unconscious and waking life. A false awakening. She’ll dream that she got up, shut off her first alarm at 6:55 a.m., and took a shower. Mundane shit like that. 

Usually it doesn’t involve hardcore unicorn erotica.

“ _His words make me tremble with desire, and soon enough, I begin to stroke myself off as I read the rest of the unicorn’s beautifully crafted lette_ r.

“ _‘I can’t wait to be inside of you,’_ _I read aloud, my voice quaking. ‘To shove this fat unicorn cock up your ass and make you beg for more._ ’ ”

 _Damn_. Her unconscious mind must be channeling some pent up sexual aggression.

She rubs her left cheek against the pillow. It’s an ergonomic, memory foam one: the non-Costco variety. Not her pillow, not her bed. _Fantastic_. She slowly blinks her eyes open. It’s still dark in the room.

“ _I suddenly find myself aching to come, to shoot my pent up load as I recite Hunter’s romantic words aloud._ ”

The hand grips her shoulder and a face seems to materialize next to her right ear. 

“Should I recite the unicorn’s words aloud, Rey?”

“Hmm?”

“ _‘I want to blast my load all over your chiseled human face and watch you lick my unicorn seed from your lips.’_ ”

 _Unicorn seed on your lips_ can be a _very_ sobering wakeup call. She remembers exactly where she is now, and most of what happened. Certain parts seem gauzy, like they were filmed with Vaseline over the lens, but there are a few key highlights that come roaring back in high definition, despite her groggy state. 

**Number one:** She fucked Ben. Several times. Probably too many times to be written off as a mimosa-fueled accident. (She’s not saying she _would_ explain it away like that, but it would be nice to have the _option_.)

 **Number two:** She saw Amilyn and proceeded to have the first stage of a nervous breakdown in public, over a lukewarm bowl of matzoh ball soup. The second stage should be making its surprise debut during the work day, so she can look forward to some quality crying-in-the-public-restroom time at the office. 

**Number three:** She spent _the night_ here. By her recollection, that included—but was not limited to—cuddling, spooning, a few gentle make outs, and, at one point, lingering placement of “cold” hands on sensitive parts of the other person’s body. So many red flags. It should have felt uncomfortable, doing that cloying, relationship-y stuff with Ben, of all people. But it was actually kind of good and soft and surprisingly...easy? 

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t followed through on her plan to leave an hour ago. The whole thing feels about as safe as holding a grenade. 

“It’s too early for a Tingler,” she says, rubbing the sleep out her eye. “I think my brain is short circuiting.”

“It’s just after six. I didn’t know what time you needed to be up. And I thought you liked a little human-on-fantasy species porn first thing in the morning.” Ben smooths her hair back away from the side of her face, exposing her ear and leaning into it and murmuring, “Or is it only dinosaur executives that do it for you?” 

She shivers. Her neck and ears haven’t been touched in hours, so they’re ultra-sensitive.

“The words themselves aren’t really the main attraction,” she points out.

“No?” She feels him close the gap between her back and his chest and it becomes very apparent that they’re both naked. 

“Sometimes it’s all in the delivery.”

His right arm snakes its way around her hip, definitively closing the window in which she could have quietly slid out of bed and retrieved her dress from where it’s still hanging over the washer. 

“So you like the delivery?”

Rey finds herself agreeing with a faint “mmm hmm.” 

Her cheeks feel flushed. Really hot. The air is still freezing outside the covers even though it’s about a million degrees under the duvet. She’s forgotten how men magically become radiators at night. 

His body is warm and firm against hers and there’s no reason she should wantto escape this. 

“I want to see how you touch yourself. In the morning.” His thumb grazes the soft, ticklish area where her thigh meets her hip and she can’t help squirming a little bit. “Show me.”

The hair on her forearms stands on end. In her mind’s eye she can almost see the soft electric charge flowing from where his lips are brushing the nervy areas on the back of her neck down her spine, to her belly, to where his hand is resting. Like his presence is waking up her body, even as her mind lags a few steps behind. 

She’s not alert enough to feel nervous, which is probably why, with a stuttering breath, she moves her right hand between her legs, parting them just enough. He won’t see much from this angle, but maybe he can feel the way she moves against her own fingers. 

Ben shifts himself up toward the headboard, moving his left arm under her neck, reading from the phone in his hand. 

“I’ll skip to the part where he fucks his own butt.”

“Wait.” She turns her head slightly. “Have you read this before?”

“ _‘The second that we get back to my apartment, all bets are off. Portork_ ’—that’s the butt—”

“The butt has a name?”

“ ‘ _...and me_ ’—God, this grammar—‘ _stumble through the door, kissing frantically as we make our way towards the bedroom._ ’ ” He pauses. “Are you touching yourself?”

“To _this_? Wait, what happened to the unicorn?”

“It’s _Buttception_. Don’t overthink it.”

He continues giving Chuck Tingle’s prose the sense of gravitas it deserves, while Rey starts rubbing her clit in lazy strokes, trying get what she needs from the voice without actually hearing the words. His erection presses insistently into her ass and she finds herself arching her back, pushing against it. She’s been awake for, like, ninety seconds and it and apparently doesn’t take them long at all to end up like this. 

“ _Portork puts his wings against the back of my head and keeps me here for a while, enjoying the control he has over me._ ” Is it possible he’s caging her in a bit more with his arms now? “ _My throat is stuffed completely, no sound and no air, but just when I’m about to start worrying, my ass lets up._ ”

He pauses dramatically, and then: “ _‘I need you to fuck me.’_ ”

“Hold on, who said that?”

“I don’t think it matters.” Ben shoves the duvet down the bed. “Is this what you do every morning? Like this?”

“I use a vibrator.” She’s throbbing to the extent that it might be visible to the naked eye. “It’s more efficient.” She would actually commit murder for a vibrator right now. 

“I see.” He returns to the phone. “ _The connection erupting between us is an expression of pure, unfiltered love in its_ ”—apostrophe mistake there; this is really sloppy copy editing—“ _its rawest form: the love between a man and his own living ass._ ’”

A peel of laughter bursts out of her throat.

“ _Stop_. Say literally anything else _._ ”

There’s a second or two of silence before he drops the phone and it bounces softly on the mattress. 

“Roll over onto your stomach.” 

She doesn’t move, unsure of whether the directive had come from Ben or Portork. 

He pushes down on her right shoulder so that she’s lying on her belly. _That answers that question._

“Keep going. I’ll help you.” His hand slides all the way down her back and he nudges her legs slightly further apart. “More efficient,” he adds under his breath. 

Rey turns her head to look back at him as he shifts his whole body downward, onto his knees, moving his hand down to brush against hers. 

“God, I love making you so wet.” His fingers gently continue their frustratingly non-committal exploration. “This happens every morning?” 

“It’s _not_ every morning.”

He stills.

“Just go with it, Rey. You don’t have to fight me on fucking everything.” 

She grumbles and presses her hips back down to make him continue. _It’s_ not _every day. Just “most,” and that is_ not _at all the same._

“What do you think about when you touch yourself?” One—no, two large fingers slide all too easily inside her and she sucks in a breath at the sudden tightness. “Are you picturing a gay triceratops?”

“You’re so fucking weird.”

“Or do you think about me?”

The truth is, Rey doesn’t really picture someone with a clearly defined face. The voice is one thing. In theory, she could match Ben voice’s to someone else’s body. But instead, she just doesn’t...fill it in. It’s worked well enough, so far. 

The pads of his fingers press down on her front walls and— _shit shit_ SHIT—immediately there’s a sharper heat building on top of the steady tension. It’s the difference between _let’s see where this pleasurable feeling leads_ and _there is definitely, one hundred percent, an orgasm in my near future_. Her heart races. 

She lets out some incomprehensible, moaning sound in response to his question and loops her left arm around the pillow, needing to hold on to something.

“No, I’m going to need an honest answer.” He pushes with just a bit more force, slowly pulsing against this certain spot in a steady, controlled rhythm. It’s a tiny bit annoying that this is still something she’s not great at locating on her own ( _it’s an awkward angle_ _with your own hand, okay?_ ), while he seems to have no trouble honing in on it every damn time. 

She feels his left hand reach around to meet her right hand, which has stopped doing anything effective. 

“Did you get distracted? We’ll do it together.” He covers the back of her hand with his palm, guiding her fingers around and around and—

“Fu—” 

She writhes a little on his hands and he just takes over, picking up the pace and moving her hand out of the way. She can’t decide if she’s relieved or annoyed. 

“Whose voice do you get yourself off to every morning?” 

There’s no space in her brain to dispute the accuracy of that question right now. That part of her mind has rapidly contracted into something the size of a pea. The part screaming at her to keep going, to say whatever is necessary to _get more, more, more right now_ has expanded like a helium balloon. 

“Yours!” she chokes out.

“Good. That’s good. You’re telling the truth now.” His hands slow back down and she catches her breath. “But I want to know what goes through your mind. I want to hear it.” 

It’s basically extortion at this point, but she’d rather be satisfied than indignant. 

“I think a-about you.” 

Rey says a brief, silent prayer in memory of their now-deceased friendship. 

“You do.”

They’re probably digging the grave several feet deeper now. She’s pitching right in, stabbing the shovel down into the ground and tossing the dirt over her shoulder. 

“Mmm hmm.”

And now they’re probably going to fuck against the tombstone.

“You need to do this every morning?” 

“It—it’s _not_ every morning!”

“Stop lying, Rey.”

“It’s _not_.” She pulls away enough to turn her head and look at him. “You’re not my only source of stroke material, Jesus Christ!” She wants to add that she’s subscribed to both the /ladyboners subreddit and the /ladyladyboners subreddit, has plenty of non-Chuck Tingle erotica on her Kindle, and access to an entire universe of straight up porn, just like anyone on Earth with an internet connection. But it’s not going to matter, because he’s concocted a fantasy where she relies on him in this one, very specific, way.

Ben waits for a few seconds before responding, like he’s suddenly afraid she might get up and leave in a huff.

“People say things they don’t mean literally when they’re in the middle of—”

“I know. _I know that_. It’s just—this is already confusing.”

“We’re still figuring it out. It’s okay.”

 _Still figuring it out_. Like, they will continue to figure out this ongoing situation. In the future. That’s a thing that he’s apparently planning on. 

It’s quiet and tense for a few moments. The discomfort creates an opening; she could extricate herself now. 

Instead, she exhales and rests her head against the pillow she’s still holding in her arm.

“Are you always up this early?” she asks, looking through the window at the slice of pre-sunrise cityscape. 

“I go to the gym first thing.” His hand is still resting on her lower back. 

“Couldn’t you go at any time of the day?”

“Force of habit. I think I like fooling myself into believing I need to get it done because I have somewhere else to be.”

“It’s cool that you thought there was any possibility I would need to get up at six.”

“I didn’t think you _needed_ to.” He runs his fingers lightly up and down her back and each stroke starts to erase the awkwardness of the last forty five seconds. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”

“No!” She catches the desperation in her voice and modulates it. “I mean...I’m _awake_ now. Very awake.”

“Can we keep going?” He lays a series of kisses down her spine, his nose dragging along her lower back. 

“Please—” It comes out needier than she intends. She lifts her chest, resting on her elbows to more comfortably look behind her. It makes her back arch more dramatically and his face fits perfectly in the curve just above her ass.

“You’re okay to do this again?” _That stupid admission last night_. “After yesterday? It’s not too—”

“Don’t stop.” He inches lower...and lower with his mouth until his tongue is almost at her crack. “Don’t fucking stop.” 

But, much to her chagrin, he does stop. She feels his weight shift over to the side as he reaches toward the nightstand. And then: the familiar fifteen seconds of “okay, it’s _probably_ happening” when a man reaches for a condom and struggles to open the packet. It reminds her of college. 

She doesn’t want to feel like a college student right now.

“I’ve never done it without a condom.” 

Rey believes she can hear Ben blink. 

“What?”

“What?” she repeats, regretting the fact that she divulged it at all and hoping maybe he didn’t actually hear. 

“You haven’t? Ever?”

“There’s nothing weird about being safe,” she says, a little defensively. 

“It’s not weird. It’s...good. Good for you.” _Good for you_? “Good job.” He hasn’t moved. The foil packet is still half-opened between his fingers. “Did you say that because you want to…?”

“I—”

“Because I haven’t done anything since Paige—well, you know that”—he talks really quickly, almost at a higher pitch— “so I’m clean and— _no_ pressure—but that’s something we could do. If you want to.”

“I hadn’t—I have an IUD…” She’s thinking out loud, which never leads to anything good. “I mean.” She rolls it over in her mind a few more times, before practically squeaking out, “Yes, please.” 

She’s already blown past half a dozen of her usual rules around casual sex in the last twenty-four hours, so why not throw this one on the bonfire? It feels wrong. _It is wrong_.But even as she mentally berates herself, the idea is in her head now and she wants it. Just this once.

After dropping the condom like it’s on fire, he pulls her hips up a bit, spreading her legs further apart, kneeling behind her. Her heart thumps hard in her chest, from wanting or apprehension or both. For some reason, despite the speed with which they’re crossing line items off an invisible sexual checklist, she still feels a twinge of nervous tension ebbing and flowing. 

It’s definitely _flowing_ now, almost flooding her brain as he places one hand on her left hip and the other between her shoulder and neck. Rey can’t help but look back at him, like she needs to double-check an answer she knows is right. 

“Okay?” he asks softly, holding back as the tip of his cock prods at her ever so slightly.

“Yeah,” she responds, in a voice that’s more breath than sound. 

“Tell me if it’s too much.”

She rolls her eyes at his _concern_ , but thank God she’s wet from before because, _God_ , it feels like a lot from this angle. A soft “oh _shit_ ” escapes her lips as he lets go of her hip to guide himself inside her while pushing down on her shoulder.

He waits for them both to breathe in and out a few times before pressing her flush against the bed, legs straight. She has no leverage like this. 

Rey just lets him fuck her into the mattress. There’s nothing to do but take it. She never allows herself do this kind of thing with random hookups. But not being in control at all is a revelation and she’s just never trusted a man like this before and it’s… Well, she usually thinks of herself as fucking the _other_ person. 

He slows down, almost to a stop, and lowers himself down onto his elbows, so that he’s covering her back. She catches her breath just before he moves her hair aside and drags his mouth over the back of her neck and shoulders. He thrusts deep and slow so that they’re easily breathing in the same languid rhythm, both groaning when he nudges this particular spot, over and over.

She feels his chest lift up slightly and he moves his hands so that they’re covering hers, fingers intertwining again, in a new iteration of yesterday’s intimacy. _This is intimate, too_ , she supposes. But in a different way. 

This time she’s not crying. 

Ben reaches underneath her, palm flat against her ribcage and pulls both of them up and backward so she’s kneeling in front of him. The angle is a little different and his strokes are more careful, but now he can reach everywhere she’s aching to be touched. He moves his hand up an inch or two, cupping around the underside of her breast, thumbing the nipple. 

She whimpers. It’s pathetic, but she really doesn’t give a sh— 

_Oh God._

It’s when his hand drifts up in between her breasts, to the base of her throat that things start to feel truly novel. He’s not pressing or anything but…. _fuck_ where is this coming from? It’s a vaguely possessive gesture and she hates herself a little bit for liking it and wanting it and worrying about what Amilyn and her friends— _and maybe Freud, himself_ —would make of it. 

Her hands are reaching behind her for anything to hold onto: she scratches at his back, his shoulder, pulls at his hair. His mouth is just barely on her ear and if he says _anything_ —a deep vibration of any kind—she’ll fucking lose it even without any friction on her clit. 

As if reading her thoughts, his other hand nudges open her legs just a tiny bit more, just enough to position his fingers right where they need to be, and she is not going to last more than thirty seconds like this. Possibly less if he opens his mouth again.

“Arch your back more.” _Shit_. Bossy talking. She complies without a second thought, pushing her shoulders back against his chest. “Is this what you fantasize about?”

“Mmnnmmhhh...harder...” _Yes, this is going to be over soon._

“You could be waking up like this every day. No headphones required. Is that what you want?”

_Every morning. This. Every goddamn day._

“Yes. Yes. I want—I’m almost—shit, I’m gonna come. Don’t stop. I’m—”

“You want me to fuck you like this every morning, don’t you?”

She doesn’t manage an intelligible answer. Because maybe she shifts her weight; maybe he changes the angle a tiny bit. Whoever does it, the smallest adjustment sends a lightning bolt down her spine, straight to her core, blotting out everything else.

“Right there, right there. Oh God. Oh God.” He holds her tight against his chest through the climax. “God I fucking love this. I love you. Fuuuuuuuuck.” 

She catches it justafter the tidal wave rolls over her body. 

_Shit. SHIT._

_Where had that come from?_

Her heart is thudding against her chest—and not because of the orgasm. 

It’s possible that he didn’t hear it. He hasn’t come yet; he might be focusing on that. She’d been too distracted to catch any immediate reaction, so…

_Yes, maybe he didn’t hear it._

She just lets herself go kind of slack as Ben presses her back down against the mattress. He utters “Rey” a few times and comes inside her in several long bursts before collapsing on top of her like the world’s heaviest weighted blanket. She doesn’t even register this supposedly momentous occasion of condomless sex. Except that everything—like, literally _everything_ —feels like a mess at this point. 

She wasn’t in her right mind. She really wasn’t. People say all sorts of things mid-orgasm. People _meow_ , for God’s sake. 

_He knows that._ He must know that? 

The word rolls around Rey’s head like a marble in one of those handheld maze games. _Why? Why did it have to be_ those _words?_

She’s sweating. Physically and metaphorically sweating. Taking it back would only draw more attention to it. 

A flashing neon sign in her brain pulses: _Get out of here_. _Get out of here_. _Leave._ _Get your shit and go_. 

Funny. That’s the exact same thing she tells herself immediately after some random hookup. It’s like a mantra. 

She reaches behind her to tap on whatever part of him is accessible.

“You’re, uh, kind of crushing me.”

_Casual and neutral. Nothing to see here._

“Oh. Sorry, I just—” He rolls himself off of her, running his hand through his hair, still breathing hard. “That was…” She carefully slides off the mattress, finding her footing on the cold wood floor. “Where are you going?” 

“I need to get up,” she says, careful not to set off any alarm bells. 

“You’re going?” Ben sits up a bit on his elbow and stares at her. There’s a slight hint of suspicion, maybe just wariness, in the look. 

“I need to pee,” she offers, backing away from the bed. It’s the truth. She’s pretty sure she feels his cum running down her inner thighs. “And then I have to go all the way home and change for work. And then go to...work.” 

“We could get coffee. Or breakfast. The Smile?”

“Don’t you refer to that place as the hipster scourge of this block?” 

“Yeah, but it’s a scourge that’s right downstairs. Or bagels? Russ and Daughters? Tompkins Square? David’s? Wherever you want.”

“It’s six in the morning, Ben. They’re not open yet.” 

“You could call in sick.” 

Ironically, she does feel quite ill. 

She searches the floor for her bag and anything else she needs to bring with her because she really doesn’t want to have to enter the bedroom again in search of a hair tie or something. 

“Can’t. I have some meetings today. Like three meetings. Everyone’s back from the holidays.” The look on Ben’s face has upgraded to mildly accusatory. “I’ll text you later?”

“Fine.” The tightness in his voice indicates that it’s not really _fine_ for her to leave like this. 

But every fiber of her being is screaming for her to flee immediately, before he has the chance to say anything else. 

She’s halfway through the door when she glances at him and his expression makes her wince. _Confusion? Disappointment_? But she doesn’t turn around.

In her entire life, she’s never gotten dressed faster. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Finnnnn  
  
**Today** 6:27 AM  
**Rey:** just wanted to let you know that everything’s fine. Hope Poe didn’t alarm you  
  
**Finn:** you’re texting early   
  
**Rey:** Do we not have a text-me-anytime friendship?  
  


 

She walks quickly around the corner to the Bleecker Street station, hugging her pea coat closed against the frigid air. It’s hard to believe she was sweating a few minutes ago.

**Finn:** I’m jogging  
  
This is the walk of shame hour   
  
For normal people.  
  
Or did you actually spend the night somewhere?   
  


 

She makes her way down the stairs while fumbling in her bag for her MetroCard, brushing past a few sleepy commuters. The digital signs display a random pattern of red on black, so the train could be coming in thirty seconds or thirty minutes. 

**Rey:** For all you know I’m jogging in the morning now too.   
  
**Finn:** ur not jogging in this weather   
  
💀  
  
Freezing my balls off   
  
why awake?   
  


 

Her thumbs hesitate over the keyboard. She types something and deletes it. 

The headlights of the 6 appear in the tunnel. 

**Today** 6:31 AM  
**Rey:** I saw Amilyn.   
  
Yesterday   
  
**Finn:** Holy shit  
  
What happened?  
  


 

The train slows to a stop and she chooses a car with enough people in it to indicate that it smells okay. 

**Rey:** don’t want to get into it.  
  
just needed to tell someone   
  
**Finn:** hey, we’re here for you  
  
if you want to call   
  
or come over?  
  


 

The last thing in the world she wants to do right now is go over to Rose and Finn’s apartment and watch them be a loving, happy family. 

The train surges forward and service cuts out in the tunnel, anyway. Putting her head in her hands, Rey becomes one of those women who softly cries on the train while the other passengers mercifully ignore her.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The elevator call button dings surprisingly quickly after Rey leaves the bedroom. She must have been putting her dress back on while heading for the door. Ben had considered getting up and maybe forcing some kind of conversation. Something to end things on a note where it didn’t feel like she was literally backing away from him in order to escape. But she hadn’t even given him the time to clean up and walk out into the loft. 

It’s so fucking typical that a series of miracles like that would culminate in a disaster. 

Truthfully, he’d half expected her to slip out in the middle of the night. He’d woken up several times and found himself mildly surprised to see her still sleeping there next to him, softly snoring, chest rising and falling. Reassuringly steady. 

Maybe the encore this morning was a bridge too far. Instead of pressing his luck, he could have gotten up and made her breakfast, like a gentleman. She’s incapable of leaving a room where food is on the table. Of course this would occur to him _now_ , two minutes after she’s out the door.

Or maybe it was a good thing. 

Because she had fucking said “I love you” clear as day and that has to _mean_ something no matter what the context is and she didn’t explain it which means she didn’t take it back but she also didn’t acknowledge it and holy fucking shit he’s going to spin on this unless he gets his goddamn mind under control. 

He’s not letting himself celebrate it. Not yet. 

The question is what to do now, aside from running the events of yesterday over and over in his mind on a loop. Except in this edit, all the questionable shit gets warped and exaggerated and interrogated until it seems like the entire twenty-four hours was a long, tense argument with a few minutes of sex thrown in. 

What he needs is an objective opinion. Someone who knows Rey and isn’t related to him and doesn’t hate his fucking guts. 

Because what if he’s supposed to run after her? And if he’s already fucked that up, then does he call her? Or, if that’s too much, what does he text her? And when? There’s some kind of decision tree here that has already branched out of control. If he had something better to do with his time, he could distract himself. 

But he doesn’t have anything else. 

So, he reaches for his phone. There is someone who knows Rey, isn’t related to him and maybe only hates him a normal amount. 

 

Rose Tico  
  
**Today** 6:26 AM  
**Ben:** Are you awake?  
  
**Rose:** I have a four-year-old.   
  
**Ben:** We did it.  
  
**Rose:**?   
  
**Ben:** Rey came over yesterday.  
  
And we did it.  
  
**Rose:** Are you trying to say you had sex?   
  
**Ben:** Yes. Sex.  
  
**Rose:** You’re texting me at 6:27 to say that?  
  
**Ben:** Yes.   
  
Too early?  
  
**Rose:** Def too early  
  


 

He briefly considers wrapping up the conversation right here, so it could actually feel like a victory. He could accept her congratulations and convince himself that Rey is just about to text her friends and shyly confess her true feelings. 

But they’re not quite there yet.

**Ben:** Actually, I need you to decode something.  
  
**Rose:** Ohhh.   
  
Something happened?  
  
**Ben:** What makes you say that?  
  
**Rose:** tell me the short version, Alice is already up   
  
And NO details.   
  
I do not want the details from you.   
  
keep it VERY high level.   
  
**Ben:** Okay  
  
We were in the middle of [redacted],  
  
is that high level?  
  
**Rose:** I’m not giving you sex advice  
  
**Ben:** I don’t need sex advice  
  
I’m providing the context  
  
**Rose:** give me like 10 mins, my kid is screaming  
  


 

The wait is interminable. He racks his brain, searching for another woman who can weigh in on this. 

He doesn’t like the name he comes up with. 

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Today** 6:36 AM  
**Ben:** Hypothetical question:  
  
An “I love you” during sex.  
  
Does it count?  
  
**Kaydel:** Good morning to you, too.  
  
Congratulations on the sex.  
  
🎉  
  
**Ben:** Hypothetical.  
  
**Kaydel:** Of course.  
  
Was there eye contact?  
  
**Ben:** Not possible at the time  
  
**Kaydel:** Dirty.  
  
What happened after you said it?   
  
I need *all* the details.   
  
**Ben:** Why do you assume I said it and not her?  
  
**Kaydel:** Do you really want me to answer that?  
  
**Ben:** She said it.  
  
**Kaydel:** Are you sure?   
  
**Ben:** She said it. And then she panicked and left.  
  
**Kaydel:** 👀  
  
Let’s focus on the sex part.   
  
Again, congratulations.   
  
Since I have your attention   
  
Can I confirm Thursday night?   
  
**Ben:** You’re doing this now?  
  
**Kaydel:** Do you have any idea the strings I pulled to make this happen?  
  
**Ben:** Don’t say anything to Leia  
  
DO NOT. SAY. ANYTHING.  
  
**Kaydel:** Helpful reading:  
  
Why You Sometimes Blurt Out I Love You During Sex.  
  
It's from VICE so it's legit.  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Husband  
  
**Today** 6:37 AM  
**Rose:** They did it.  
  
**Finn:**?  
  
I just talked to her  
  
She didn’t say that  
  
**Rose:** There’s still a month before valentines day  
  
I CALLED it  
  
I should get a time bonus  
  
hope you don’t have plans tonight  
  
**Finn:** i’ll clear my schedule  
  
hold up  
  
she told you and not me?  
  
**Rose:** He told me.  
  
**Finn:** HE did?  
  
jfc  
  
she said she saw Amilyn yesterday  
  
**Rose:**!!  
  
God what a shitshow  
  
should we group chat w/ her?  
  
**Finn:** it's so early  
  
let's wait  
  
**Rose:** are you almost done out there?  
  
Your daughter is screaming  
  
And bring back coffee? we're out  
  
**Finn:** oh she's MY daughter now?  
  
**Today** 6:45 AM  
**Finn:** coffee acquired  
  
**Rose:** My hero  
  
hey  
  
Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again  
  
**Finn:** You’ll never have to be out there again.  
  
**Today** 6:47 AM  
**Rose:** Your daughter just threw some melissa & doug crap at me.  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Private  
  
**Today** 6:39 AM  
**Hux:** OPEN YOUR FUCKING EMAIL.  
  
I have read receipts.  
  
I need something fucking humorous for tonight.  
  
People waiting at airports don’t want to hear about bloody Goethe  
  
Find me a fucking MEME  
  
**Ben:** FUCK.OFF  
  
**Today** 6:42 AM  
**Hux:** Pivot!  
  
Is Hux for or against #metoo?  
  
The female demo is critical  
  
Hux defending women  
  
Like Anderson Cooper after a natural disaster  
  
I need to be the Andy Cohen of CNN.  
  
Andy’s a friend by the way.  
  
(He wishes “with benefits”)  
  


 

He’s about to tell Hux to fuck off again when a notification from Rose makes his phone buzz. And then one from Kaydel. _Thank fucking God_. 

**Ben:** Do I acknowledge the “I love you?”  
  
Is it possible she was upset that I DIDN’T?  
  
That I didn’t say it back?  
  
Should I say it now?  
  
I mean, text it?   
  
Or call?  
  
**Hux:** Fuck me dead.  
  


 

 _FUCK_. 

**Hux:** Is THAT why you’ve been bloody ignoring me, Solo?  
  


 

 _Wrong fucking text window fucking MOTHERFUCKER._ He tosses the phone across the bed. But then it buzzes again and he has to pick it up because Rose or Kaydel might suddenly have some crucial insight and now he’s fucking _itching_ to text Rey.

**Hux:** Do NOT say it now, for fuck’s sake.  
  
**Ben:** Delete my number.  
  
**Hux:** 800 pithy words on Me Too by 14:00.  
  
Meme-worthy.  
  
Wanker.  
  


 

Rose and Kaydel have each messaged several more times and he can’t keep track of who’s saying what, so he creates a group chat (after Googling “how to make a group chat”) in an act of desperation. Like a fucking teen girl who has friends for the first time. 

**Today** 6:50 AM  
Rose  
**Rose:** Okay, back up.  
  
Who initiated?  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** Good question.  
  
I’m Kaydel, btw.  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Rose Tico  
  
How do you know Ben?  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** OMG. You’re Paige’s sister?  
  
God, I am *such* a Paige stan.   
  
Her brows are just…. *chef’s kiss*   
  
Confession: I’m a bit of Beige!  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** A what?  
  
**Ben:** FOCUS.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** I ship Ben and Paige.   
  
Purely for aesthetic reasons.   
  
Sorry. Rey’s cool, too.  
  
I can give her the number of my brow lady.  
  
  
**Ben:** It started because we were arguing.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** GTFO! Did you yell at each other with your faces really close and then just KISS?  
  
And then like a HATE SEX vibe (hhhnnggg) or like quick and dirty standing up thing?   
  
  
**Ben:** NO. It wasn’t like that.  
  
  
It was mutual. 50/50. Definitely.   
  
  
Not hate sex. Not quick and dirty.  
  
  
NOT QUICK.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** You should have just done it in the first place.  
  
Leia keeps saying you belong together.   
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Hold on.  
Didn’t I tell you to give her space?  
Like, THREE days ago?  
  
**Ben:** I DIDN'T PLAN THIS.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** Like killing two birds with one stone...  
  
Like two wrongs make a right...  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Rey is not a "wrong."  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** How was it?  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** I don’t want the details!  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** At least give me an emoji to describe it.  
  
**Ben:** I don’t emoji.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** 👀  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** What time did she leave?  
**Ben:** Half hour ago.  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Wait, she spent the NIGHT?  
**Ben:** Your shock is very flattering, thank you.  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** When did you see Amilyn?  
**Ben:** Last night.  
  
Wait, how do you know about that?  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** Who’s Amilyn?  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Her ex-wife.  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** 😳  
  
You should never sleep with anyone right after you run into your ex.  
  
💁  
  
**Ben:** SHE MOVED PAST IT.  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** 👀  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** Don’t do anything.   
Don’t text, don’t call.  
Wait for her to initiate contact.   
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** I dunno...  
  
3:25ish is a GREAT time for a “sup?”  
  
Very casual.  
  
Rose  
**Rose:** No.   
Do nothing. Do not text her "sup?"  
GIVE HER SPACE.  
She might text me in the meantime. Or Finn.  
**Ben:** She didn’t text you about it?  
  
Kaydel  
**Kaydel:** Good strategy. Triangulate!  
  
Gtg team. Peloton is starting.  
🚲💦  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey turns her notifications off because there’s no way she can focus on work today if there’s a possibility that Ben might text her one of those animated things where the hearts flutter to the top of the page. It would be inadvertent— _because there’s no way he would ever purposely send an animated flock of heart emojis to anyone_ —but also just another awkward thing to either ignore or hash out or reassure each other that it meant nothing. 

She’s staring at her laptop, pretending to read some polling data when she hears Poe saunter into their shared workspace, shortly after 10 a.m. 

“He lives,” she says flatly, without turning around. She hears him hang up his backpack and coat. 

“Likewise.” 

He appears at the edge of her peripheral vision, leaning against the wall to the left of her cluttered desk, arms folded, head cocked to the side, eyebrows raised. 

“I’m still waiting for that apology,” she says, eyes still moving over the screen.

“And I’m still waiting for a ‘thank you.’ And a copy of the voicemail. ” 

She slowly turns in her chair and stares at him, wishing they were doing this over text so she could hit him back with a well-chosen GIF. Maybe something from the Ariana Grande collection. Their whole friendship could probably be more effectively conducted in GIFs. 

“I’m not giving you anything.”

“You don’t need to, I already know everything. I know why you weren’t answering yesterday. I know who you were with. So you can drop the act. It’s over. Fess up and tell me how it happened so I can help you. Like _Iyanla Fix My Life_.”

Her cheeks get hot in an instant.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“You’re blushing and you’re a bad liar. I heard it from Hux—”

“Hux?” She feels nauseous. “Ben told people? And Hux?”

“Thank you for confirming it so quickly.” Rey puts her elbows on the desk and drops her head into her hands. “I got the impression that it’s less of a frat-boy-bragging-about-banging-a-girl-on-Yik Yak kind of thing and more ‘All my dreams came true last night, how do I _not_ fuck this up?’ vibe.”

That almost makes her feel more ill. She wishes he had casually gloatedto someone about it, like a normal douchebag. 

“I don’t want to be anyone’s dream.”

“You waited too long.” He rolls his desk chair over takes a seat. “You got into a groove with your little friendship. You heard all his stories, he heard yours. That crap is supposed to happen _after_ the sex. Assuming you see each after. Personally, I don’t want to hear anyone’s stories, but that’s just me.” 

“What about you and—”

“Hux? Oh, I definitely don’t want to hear his stories. I’d fuck him again though.” 

“Gross.”

“You missed your window. And now you’re both overthinking it and you’ll never really be able to just be friends again, so you should just rip off the band-aid today instead of prolonging this.”

Rey looks him in the eye, sizing him up for a moment before swiveling around in her chair to face her laptop again. 

“You’re fired, Iyanla.”

 _The thing is, he’s probably right._

This is exactly the kind of nightmarish dating bullshit she would normally text Ben about and now she can’t. It’s easier to laugh about this stuff when you’re both sitting next to each other on the sidelines, pointing at everyone else’s foibles. Instead, they’re wandering around a no-man’s land between buddies and soulmates and there’s no rule book for how to act. 

Can you just fuck someone like that— _multiple times_ , she helpfully reminds herself—and then grab coffee the next day and argue over whether the proposed Amazon headquarters in Long Island City deserves a private train line? ( _It doesn’t._ ) Or theorize about whether that insane light show in the sky over Astoria was _really_ a Con Ed transformer explosion? ( _Rey suspects the Illuminati_.)

Is that what it would be like to be a couple? Because her marriage...hadn’t been like that. She’d admired Amilyn too much to subject her to the inane bullshit she gleefully puts Ben through. 

They should have had The Conversation: the awkward, cringe-y “what are we and what do you want us to be?” conversation. On Sunday afternoon. Or Sunday evening. Or this morning. The thought of starting that discussion _now_ and acknowledging that their relationship is one enormous gray area makes her feel physically ill. She’s more comfortable scurrying back and forth between black and white. 

Unlocking her phone, she can’t help but notice that there are, indeed, many unread messages. Just none from Ben. Which is good. A relief. A huge relief. She definitely doesn’t have to worry about opening a text and being attacked with those heart emojis. _Great_. 

She taps the Instagram icon and searches for Paige’s account. There’s a lot of scrolling to get through but eventually she finds photos of Paige and Ben. They look kind of perfect together and not just because of the filters, although Paige is clearly quite skilled with them. She’s tall and model-y and has dark hair like Ben and they’d probably have exquisite children that Leia would _adore_ holding for a few hours, before giving them back at the end of the afternoon. 

Rey tries to imagine a reality in which she and Ben take well-curated, dreamy photos at an architecturally significant eco lodge in Vieques. Where they document their renovation projects like a gender-swapped, Manhattan version of Chip and Joanna Gaines. Where they’re getting off the 2 train and Ben hoists a kid up on his shoulders as they walk down to the entrance of the Bronx Zoo. 

_Shit_. _SHIT._

She turns off her phone—as if that will also shut off that last bit of imagery in her mind—and stares at the black screen. Turning the device over on her desk, she pushes it away about a foot away for good measure. It's about as unwelcome as unicorn erotica first thing in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of shorter chapters, this is one I split because it was unmanageably long. Which means the next update should be coming up soon. And there will be some angst. I know, because I’ve already written it. In fact, I’m busily trying to adjust the angst levels right now. 
> 
> The title is a [Depeche Mode song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2VBmHOYpV8) and I’m shocked that it took me this long to mention that DM is my number one Reylo soundtrack. That’s right, it’s not The Cure. It's a fact that Dave Gahan’s voice is what Kylo Ren’s singing voice would be in canon. And there’s one album in particular that is just filled with absolute Reylo gems. 
> 
>  
> 
> **My stupid references (I’m not sure how regional or American some of these are!):**
> 
>  
> 
> [Peloton](https://www.onepeloton.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [New Amazon HQ in Long Island City ](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/12/18/18146208/long-island-city-market-report-amazon-hq2). I have a lot of feelings about this, which I won't get into, but LIC is right next to Astoria, which is just across the river from Manhattan. 
> 
> [Con Ed transformer explodes!](https://astoriapost.com/transformer-explosion-at-astoria-con-ed-plant-lights-up-new-york-city) It looked like the start of an alien invasion. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Andy Cohen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Cohen_\(TV_personality\))
> 
>  
> 
> [Chip and Joanna Gaines](https://www.hgtv.com/shows/fixer-upper) \- (Hey, true story, I used to run a twitter account where I would clown on House Hunters)
> 
>  
> 
> [Iyanla Fix My Life](http://www.oprah.com/app/iyanla-fix-my-life.html)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> And finally: Yes, I purchased and read Chuck Tingle’s Buttception. I’ll be totally real about something. I’ve been struggling with depression and it took me quite a long time to even create the google doc for this chapter. I don’t feel very funny or creative right now. The only thing that actually got me started writing was the crutch of extensively quoting Buttception. I probably should have cut most of it out, but I owe Chuck a big debt of gratitude, so I’ve kept it all in there. I didn’t even quote from the incredible third section, in which Chuck himself fucks one of his own books. I assumed it was going to have something to do with Inception, so I was like “Oooh, that works as a reference” but, alas, Buttception is not that at all. Well-played, Chuck. You tingled me out of two dollars.


	17. Bourgeois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we left off: Rose and Kaydel teamed up to give Ben some advice. Will he follow it and take it down a notch? [cue laughter]
> 
> Meanwhile, Rey had an existential crisis at her desk after uttering the L word. (In coitus veritas?)
> 
> And now, our silly space kids handle the aftermath of the longest 24 hours committed to fic. Are they still friends? Are they BF/GF? FWB? TBD?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who gave me ideas for what meals Ben might cook for Rey. As you’ll see, I tried to incorporate **all of them** and I brazenly stole some people’s lines. Ben is _that_ extra. 
> 
> I made up a short [ playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iy7AMKDGQ5qyz5uNJYDbP) of some of the songs I listened to while writing this one. They’re all by Phoenix, which is a band that features heavily on my overall writing playlist. I saw Phoenix several times in NYC, and even though they’re not a New York band, I just associate them with so many little memories of the city. The chapter title is a song that I honestly always envisioned for a big, romantic reunion moment, even though it is not a love song. It really worked for me while writing the last part of this chapter. It feels like Ben. 
> 
> Thank you to [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum) and [selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen) for being my sounding boards and reading whatever this was when it was still part of the last chapter. This is probably the worst chapter to post without a beta read, but I am LIVING DANGEROUSLY. Look out, people. The other shoe is dangling…really, holding on for dear life here.

Ten hours. 

It’s been ten fucking hours since he’s heard from her. 

Around hour six, the confusion turned into anger. He’s still waiting for the anger to transition to the next phase. Whatever that is. _Bargaining?_

For someone so afraid of being “left”, she certainly had _no_ fucking problem walking—no, _sprinting_ —out. And then radio silence? 

_Fuck her_. He kind of hopes she’s crying somewhere. At her desk. 

If it had truly been some meaningless event, she wouldn’t be hiding like this. She’s probably embarrassed that the truth came out. 

That’s what he’s telling himself. He’s been to Crunch once already. He’s swept up the drywall dust. He walks over to Westville East for lunch because fuck those bougie interlopers like sweetgreen and Dig Inn. He’s pretty sure the waitress mutters a few things about the First Order under her breath, but he could just be paranoid at this point. At least it’s not like it was back when Sarah Huckabee Sanders got kicked out of Red Hen and suddenly every restaurant in town had wanted to prove their liberal bonafides. 

He’s tried to fucking meditate, which did nothing but remind him how terrible he is at emptying his mind. You’re supposed to imagine the thoughts as clouds and calmly watch them float by, as if the base state of his mind is some blue fucking sky and the self-hating thoughts are the anomaly.

Finally, when he is truly good and pissed, he opens fucking Tinder. At first he tries to just swipe right on everybody. Fuck it. What difference does it make? But inevitably, he can’t _not_ be picky about this. His brain doesn’t work that way. So, he starts analyzing the photos, judging the names. So many fucking Laurens in this city. Ashleys, Harpers, Caitlins. _Swipe right_. 

_Yes._ Yes this feels better. He’s back in control of something. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s just after seven when Rey hauls her reusable grocery bags out of the elevator and down the hallway to her front door, balancing her phone in one hand and her keys in the other. 

She shoves one of the bags roughly over the threshold with her foot. It doesn’t matter. There’s no produce to bruise: it’s mostly French bread pizzas in there. She’s much more careful with the bottles of wine. 

_Yes, wine._ She needs it after the billable hour she spent on the phone with the law firm of “That’s mine, this is yours.” It’s a really nice bottle with a good illustration on the label, which is Rey’s primary method of selecting wine. _Screw top wine really can be high quality_ , she assures herself, as she inadvertently pictures Ben rolling his eyes at this assessment. 

She turns the oven on (this is the fancy way to heat up a French bread pizza) and walks straight into the living room with her very full wine glass, not bothering to put away the groceries—such as they are—just yet. She just wants to collapse into one of the chairs, with the worn, buttery leather upholstery, and think about _nothing_. 

Cooking isn’t her strong suit; that’d been Amilyn’s thing. As a single person, she's been living on a steady diet of frozen meals, takeout, and bowls of cereal. 

Technically, almost everything in the apartment had been Amilyn’s thing, including the apartment itself. And even though she’d taken almost everything that could be picked up and carried, the place still feels like “Amilyn’s apartment,” in a spiritual sense. She’d bought it before Rey ever lived in New York. She’d redone the countertops, picked out the paint colors, customized the window treatments. 

And she’d offered to redo everything when Rey moved in. 

“It’s already perfect,” Rey had insisted. And it had been perfectly nice stuff. There’d been no reason to scrap it all for purely aesthetic reasons. It wasn’t like she had anything to contribute, anyway: a third-hand loft bed (out of which had fallen many a drunken hookup) and a desk she’d found on the street. 

Amilyn had always taken care of everything. So, over the past few months, certain things had fallen away. That’s the thing about getting divorced: it’s the mundane details that can just make you snap.

  
Finding magazines in the mailbox addressed to “Amilyn Holdo.”  
Realizing that Amilyn had been scheduling and paying the nice lady who had cleaned the apartment every other week.  
Looking at the sad post-it note on her desk reminding her to update her emergency contact information for HR.  


To whom, though? Probably Finn and Rose, which seems pathetic. Like they’re her substitute parents even though they have their own child to raise. 

She gulps the wine.

Rey briefly wonders who Ben’s emergency contact person is. Maybe Leia. But then, he doesn’t have a job that would ask him for that information, so maybe it’s just when he’s at the doctor’s office or—

 _Shit._ She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to go there tonight. But how can she not when everything that doesn’t remind her of Amilyn is something associated with Ben? Like this chair. Like _most_ of her makeshift and borrowed furniture. Except for the bar stools, which had come from Han. 

His fatherly support is just another thing that’s on loan from Ben. 

If it doesn’t belong to you, it can be revoked at any time. Sometimes even the things that are supposed to belong to you can just disappear. 

She sits sideways in the chair, legs flung over one of the oversized arms, staring at the black television screen. The wine glass is almost empty. The oven beeps.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Today** 7:47 PM  
**Rey:** hi   
  


Ben sits up faster than he ever has in his life when the phone chirps. _Fuck_. His thumbs race around the keyboard as he carefully types out the response he had planned during the “confusion” part of the morning. He double checks the spelling and then waits a good thirty seconds before hitting send. _Not too desperate._

**Ben:** new phone who dis  
  


Three seconds later, an incoming call. 

“No. You _did not_ phrase that correctly. How _dare_?”

“I did.” He’s already up and fucking pacing. 

“God, that makes me so proud.” There’s silence for a few moments, like they’re each waiting for the other to say something. “Hey. I miss talking to you.” 

He can hear her exhale, almost in relief. 

“We talked this morning. Sort of.” He’s not going to let her forget that. “We’re talking now.” 

“Yeah but it’s different,” she says, with a touch of petulance. 

“Different can be good.” He wanders aimlessly into the bedroom and flops down dramatically on his unmade bed, which still has the dirty sheets on it. It goes against all of his normal impulses, but he can’t bring himself to destroy this crucial bit of evidence just yet. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” _Like old times?_ No. 

“We don’t need to watch a movie to talk.” He stares up at the faded beige plaster on the ceiling. “Nothing is preventing you from subjecting me to puns and sexual innuendo.”

“I can’t think of any right now. I guess the second glass of wine must be kicking in.” Another long pause. “Netflix is telling me to watch _Mamma Mia_. Or _Boss Baby_. Oh shit. _Left Behind_. The Nic Cage one.”

“Rey—”

“Please can we watch this?” There’s uncharacteristic touch of desperation in her voice. “Please?”

He sighs and searches for the remote, which isn’t on his nightstand, where it’s supposed to be. 

“Hold on.” 

He finds it on the nightstand on her side. The left side. 

“I’ve seen the Kirk Cameron one, _of course_ , but never the remake—”

“Did you think we were just going to go on like that forever?” 

There’s a pause and it sounds like Rey sniffs or inhales on the other end of the line.

“Like what forever?”

He turns the TV on.

“Like two people who want to be more than friends but never act on it.”

Another long pause. Netflix takes its sweet time loading.

“Maybe there’s a reason we never acted on it.” She seems to say it like she’s choosing her words carefully, but it could be his imagination. 

“We were both getting over long term relationships? We weren’t ready to date anyone?”

“Do we have to—” 

“Are we going to talk about this or are you going to pretend nothing happened? Again?”

“Are you ready? I’m pressing play.” _So...more pretending and deflecting, then._

Ben looks to the side and huffs out an aggravated exhale away from the phone speaker.

The logos of production and distribution companies no one has ever heard of animate across the screen. 

“Rey.”

There’s a stretch of silence that feels interminable over an establishing shot of Manhattan. It’s probably just stock footage but for some reason it makes the distance between Noho and Astoria feel like a hundred miles. 

And then suddenly...

“I want to text you about this guy I know.” Ben shifts his whole body in an effort to hear her more clearly. “We’ve been hanging out for a little while and he kinda became my favorite person to talk to. I can tell him anything and we just... _get_ each other.”

“But?”

“—one day, out of nowhere, we decided to...bone.”

“Oh you _boned_? ‘Out of nowhere?’ Sounds very intimate.”

“Yeah. I guess he was really turned on by my emotional breakdowns.” She possibly laughs very lightly at that, but he can’t quite hear over the stupid fucking movie. “The extras in this airport scene all look embarrassed.”

“As they should.” He presses MUTE. “Tell me about the guy you boned.”

“Let’s see...He doesn’t do his own laundry. He has a real aversion to crumbs. And very strange reading habits.”

“How was the sex?”

“Eh. Adequate.” He can almost _hear_ her smiling.

“Penis size?”

“Eh. Adequate.”

“I can see why you’re so taken with him.”

“When did I say that?”

“That’s true." He leans back into the headboard. "You’ve never said anything remotely like that.”

“That’s the thing. Who am I going to text about you?”

“You can text me about how adequate I am. It’s probably the most positive feedback I’ve received in a year.” 

“I hate when you say things like—Oh my God, did you just see that Photoshopped picture of Nic Cage with a family? It looked like a crayon drawing. I'm gonna back up ten seconds.”

“Do you want to have dinner? Just dinner.” _Fuck it._ “Unless you also want to have sex. In which case it would be both.” 

“I thought we weren’t going to rush into anything.”

“You just said you miss me.”

“Miss talking to you.”

“You can talk to me while I make you dinner.”

“How do you know I didn’t already cook for myself tonight?”

“Reese’s Puffs are not a meal.”

“Excuse me, I just put two French bread pizzas in the oven.”

“Oh, well in that case…”

“Let’s just watch the movie. Okay?” He doesn’t respond. “If you get hungry, I happen to know that there’s some red curry your fridge.”

“I guess I’m lucky you knew it was in there, but didn’t finish it.”

“You might say you got lucky, yes.” 

He fucking smiles, despite himself.

“I will hang up this phone if you pun again.”

**Today** 7:54 PM  
**Rey:** Don’t do it! I don’t want to get...LEFT BEHIND.  
  
😇  
  
**Ben:** Oh yeah. I got REALLY lucky with you.  
  
**Today** 7:56 PM  
❤️  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

TUESDAY

Kaydel  
  
**Today** 10:26 AM  
**Kaydel:** Hi Rey!  
  
Are you avail Wednesday at 3 pm for coffee with Leia?  
  
**Rey:** It’s a busy week. I’m traveling.  
  
Hang on, let me check my calendar.  
  
**Kaydel:** I’ve heard it’s been a *very* busy week for you! 😉  
  
**Rey:**?  
  
If she can meet in Midtown, I think I can make it work.  
  
Any idea about the reason?  
  
**Kaydel:** Something about a consulting opp.  
  
And she probably wants to get to know you better.   
  
For obvious reasons. 💁  
  
**Rey:**...  
  
**Kaydel:** Okay, we are locked in for Wednesday, 3 pm.  
  
Radiance Tea Room on W. 55th (not the east side one!)   
  
(the ginger milk tea is 👌)  
  
Oh, and I’m gonna drop you the contact info for the place where I get my brows done.   
  
It’s the best $80 you’ll ever spend.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Today** 11:32 AM  
**Ben:** Did you fix the shower?  
  
**Rey:** It took you a DAY to notice?  
  
**Ben:** I shower at the gym.  
  
**Rey:** You’re welcome.  
  
**Ben:** What do I owe you?  
  
**Rey:** I already received payment. You just didn’t realize it at the time.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

WEDNESDAY 

Leia is early to their coffee—er, _tea_ —date because she’s already sitting at a table, in a high-backed wooden chair, ear pressed to her phone when Rey gets there just before 3 pm. 

If she was currently communicating with any of her friends about this, she could screenshot the conversation with Kaydel and get their hot takes on the possible symbolism behind the emojis, but that would be like admitting that the whole thing is a bigger deal than it actually is, so it’s not an option. 

_Everything’s fine. It’s fine._

“...he didn’t even come over. He forgot some charity thing his wife was chairman of.” Leia waves Rey over and stands up. “He’s never going to leave her.”

Leia puts the phone on the table to properly greet her. The faint voice on the other assure her that, _of course he’s never going to leave her_. 

What Rey intends as a polite “hello hug” quickly turns into a full-on, lingering, motherly _embrace_. Sometimes it’s not until she encounters genuine parental affection that she recognizes the utter lack of it in her life. It almost hurts more to fill the cavity than to leave it empty. 

“You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right,” she says, returning the phone to her ear before making her apologies and hanging up. 

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Leia says, returning to her seat and retrieving something from her expensive-looking handbag. Rey slides into the heavy chair across from her. “God, I would kill for an actual drink right now, but Kaydel’s trying to wean me off afternoon cocktails.”

As the server fills their water glasses, Leia passes a folded piece of paper across the table, leaving it just above Rey’s napkin.

“I want to preserve plausible deniability with your boss, so let’s not actually talk about it, but there are three candidates on written on that note that are staffing up for New Hampshire and South Carolina. Maybe California. They’re all too fringe for Lando, but for you—maybe not?” She raises her eyebrows, as if to confirm that Rey is, indeed, a democratic socialist who works on behalf of slightly left of center, middle-aged, white candidates. “In any case, you’re in a good position to negotiate with him now. But the last name on that list? I got ‘Bartlet for America’ vibes.” 

Rey’s mind briefly conjures up a quiet orchestra playing the theme from _The West Wing_ as she pictures herself doing a hallway walk-and-talk with Josh and C.J. 

“Leia, this is really kind of you, but I love my job.” _I think._ “And Lando’s...pragmatic, but he’s been really fair to me and I still have so much more to learn before I’ll feel—” 

She pushes the paper an inch closer.

“I hope you’ll make a decision based on more than an allegiance to Lando. God knows loyalty isn’t exactly his strong suit, anyway. You have good instincts, Rey. You already have everything you need, whatever it is you want to do.”

It’s strange, actually hearing that kind of outright validation from someone other than Amilyn. 

“Well, I’ll give it some thought.”

Rey reaches for the note and Leia surprises her by closing her warm palm over the back of her hand. Their eyes meet for a few moments. 

“Sometimes women need more of a push to take those leaps of faith. If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. I think they only pass around that memo to men.”

Leia gives her hand a little pat and settles back into her seat, picking up her water glass. Rey looks down at the note again, considering the names. 

“I really appreciate this.” She exhales. “I don’t know. With the divorce, I’ve been...distracted.” 

“When one part of your life gets upended, it’s a good time to reexamine the other parts. I’m happy to help if you need any intros. Any of the people on that list will take my call.” She picks up the massive tea menu. “And I want you to know that I’m not offering just because you’re sleeping with my idiot son.” 

Rey’s head snaps up.

“I—what?” Had she heard that correctly? 

“I can never remember which tea I get here,” Leia says, casually flipping through the pages. “I should text Kay.”

“Is it...ginger milk tea?” Rey offers weakly. 

“Yes! That’s it. We can split a pot. It’s delicious.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Today** 3:37 PM  
**Rey:** You told your mother?  
  
**Ben:** No.  
  
If she knows, she didn’t hear it from me.  
  
Do you want to have dinner?  
  
**Rey:** Leaving tonight for DC.  
  
**Ben:** Oh.  
  
**Rey:** She invited me to a “family dinner.”  
  
Did you say something to her ASSISTANT?  
  
**Ben:** This is what she does.  
  
She’s a Jewish mother who never learned to cook so she takes people to restaurants.  
  
**Rey:** I had to sit across the table from her knowing that SHE knows we had sex.  
  
**Ben:** She founded a company called Sex is for Every Body.   
  
She doesn’t have these hangups.  
  
**Rey:** Well *I* have a hangup about it.   
  
**Ben:** I know.  
  
She has a way of finding out the truth about anything. Imagine growing up with that.  
  
**Rey:** This is SO awkward. You get that, right?   
  
**Ben:** You’re asking ME if I perceive something as awkward?  
  


 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Finnnnn  
  
**Today** 5:27 PM  
**Finn:** seriously Rey?   
  
I’m actually jealous of Rose’s communication level with Ben.   
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

MONDAY 

Rey answers the knock at the door wearing a pair of gym shorts and a Lilith Fair tank top because the heat in this building is still completely out of control. 

“You’ll never guess what I saw at the gym today. Fucking _Point Break_.” Ben steps through the door, holding a cardboard box and two Gourmet Garage bags. “You were just saying how you do that Swazyethon every year and I hadn’t seen it.” She’s pretty sure she’d said that over a month ago. “Now I finally understand why Dameron kept calling me ‘Johnny Utah’ the other night.”

“What’s in the box?” 

“Dinner. How was your trip?”

“I thought we were gonna do mac and cheese. I only asked you to pick up milk at the Trade Fair downstairs—”

“I said I’d make you dinner. A real dinner.”

“I have so many boxes of mac and cheese, though. You really didn’t need to bring”—she peers into the box—“equipment. Really?” 

“Really.” He walks back into the apartment toward the kitchen, brushing past her. “You’re going to eat something that didn’t come out of a box.”

“Blasphemy.”

There’s a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. It’s either a gym bag or a very presumptuous move. _Does Ben have his own potential-sex bag?_

She’d wanted to have this conversation in a neutral location—not while she’s watching him cook some elaborate meal for her. 

“I assumed you only had salt and pepper,” he says, setting the box and grocery bags down on the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room. “You do have salt and pepper, right?”

She walks over to the stove and holds up little glass salt and pepper shakers. 

“Would you believe that I also have olive oil?” 

“You stole salt and pepper shakers from a diner?” He drops the duffel bag on the floor next to Han’s bar stools before taking off his coat and carefully laying it on one of the seats. 

”The food I eat doesn’t usually need _more_ salt, so…”

Ben pulls his sweater over his head, and for a second Rey has this ridiculous thought that he’s just... _casually undressing_ because now that’s how things are between them. 

“There’s something I need to talk to you about...” She finds herself distracted by the pale slice of skin above his waistband and just lets herself trail off. 

“It’s so fucking hot in here,” he says, folding the sweater— _of course he_ folds _it_ —and placing it on top of the coat. 

“It’s always hot in here.” Stepping over to counter, she peeks into the bag. “Gourmet Garage? Really?” She starts pulling items out of the bag. “Ooh, cheese.”

“I don’t trust the Gristedes on University.” He walks around the counter to the kitchen cabinets, apparently looking for cooking implements. Why are his t-shirts always straining, ever so slightly?

“Yeah, you really need to watch it with their...semolina flour?” _Because why would normal flour be good enough?_ “If you’re looking for my one and only bowl, check the lower left cabinet.” 

“One?” He shakes his head and opens the cabinet. “You own one bowl?”

“What kind of mac and cheese are you making that requires a bowl, let alone _multiple_ bowls?”

“ _Lasagne in bianco_.” She raises her eyebrows. “Macaroni and cheese in lasagna form.” He clearly hates himself for qualifying it that way. “The bowl is for the cheese you’re going to grate. Is it possible that you own a baking dish?”

“And here, I was going to offer you a choice between Annie’s and the generic version of Kraft.” She crouches down to the lower right cabinet. “Will this work?” She holds up a rectangular glass dish. “I use it for pot brownies.”

He gives her a look before taking the dish out of her hands.

“I’m sure I can do better than either of the boxes.”

“But why would you need to do better than perfection?” Rey lifts the surprisingly heavy metal object out of the box. “You brought a pasta machine? You _own_ a pasta machine?” 

“It’s elevated comfort food,” he says, unscrewing the stolen diner salt shaker. “I’m buying you some decent sea salt, this is so unacceptable.”

Rey leans her lower back against the counter top, in front of the bags. She’s about to tell him not to bother with the sea salt as an awkward segue into her news, but something else comes out instead.

“You think I need comforting?” 

Ben stops fussing with the shaker. And... _shit_. She’s way off the script, now. He wasn’t supposed to come over here and just...make pasta from scratch. It’s a dirty move, plying her with food that apparently takes three-and-a-half hours to prepare. 

He walks toward her—only one step, because he’s a big man in a New York kitchen—and it suddenly occurs to her that his hands were full when he came in, so they haven’t...touched. Not that they would normally do that. But maybe that _is_ a thing they do now?

“Do you?” He looms over her, a few inches from touching. 

“Do I what?” The fabric of his shirt just barely brushes against the Lilith Fair logo that stretches across her breasts. 

“Need. Comforting.” His eyes move up and down her face. Like he’s maybe going to lean a bit further and tilt his head down. He lifts his right arm and—

—reaches for half a pound of imported fontina cheese. 

“Make yourself useful and shred this. There’s a grater in the box.”

She exhales.

“Sure. Give me the dangerous job,” she mutters, as he opens the package of flour and searches the drawers for measuring cups, as if she might actually own some. 

“While this is in the oven”—he turns back around to face her—“we’re going to your bedroom, rounding up every nineties-era t-shirt that belonged to your ex-wife, and throwing them in a garbage bag.” Rey opens her mouth to object when he adds, “To be donated.”

She can’t quite tell if he’s serious. They’re good shirts. With some happy memories. 

And something feels tight in her belly when he mentions her bedroom and she feels her mind slipping out of rational mode into “now generating images of the sex you could be having” mode. 

She can’t let her brain go _there_ tonight. It would be another misstep. Probably worse than before.

“You know,” she says, looking for a subject change as she carefully picks up the grater, “I do have a huge bag of bacon bits from Costco. They go really well in mac and cheese, if you just sprinkle them—”

“Absolutely not.” He furrows his brow. “I bought prosciutto.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben had expected to find maybe half a dozen of Amilyn’s shirts in Rey’s dresser. Instead, it’s almost like she forgot to empty one particular drawer in her haste to vacate the apartment, and that drawer happened to contain an overstuffed Gen X time capsule. 

Admittedly, he’s slightly jealous of the collection; it’s like Cameron Crowe’s laundry basket. It’s fucking irritating that there would be so much overlap between his own tastes and Amilyn’s. 

But they all need to go. For Rey’s sake. It’s time. 

He’s really fucking proud of himself for the restraint he’s shown all evening, on Rose’s advice. There hasn’t really been a hint of desperation. There’s no need to push. 

He’s just waiting for a gesture. Some kind of opening. It’ll happen. Because they’re already in her room and Rey’s sitting, cross-legged, on her bed. The probability of two people who’ve already fucked each other, hanging out in a bedroom and _not_ fucking each other again has to be pretty low. He likes his odds. 

He pictures himself on top of her, the lights still on, her legs wrapped around him. He could reach down and rip that stupid t-shirt in half and throw it in the garbage pile with the rest of the evidence of her marriage. 

She might even say it again, but looking into his eyes this time so there’s no mistaking it.

Rey keeps alluding to something she wants to talk about and then dropping the subject. _Her actual feelings for him?_ He feels a tiny rush of excitement, permitting himself the thought that this could be the night they _settle_ it. 

“I think you should be the one to put the shirts in the bag,” he says. The truth is, he wants to see her do it: pull everything out of that goddamn drawer and put the past behind her. 

It’s so fucking dumb, but he’d thought that maybe, after Rey had worn _his_ shirt last week, whatever spell she was under with her ex’s clothes would be broken. She would toss Amilyn’s Pearl Jam shirt down the garbage chute and wear his instead. 

And then let him take it off. 

She bites her lip and stands up as he holds the trash bag open. 

“Why is this so important to you?” Rey asks, unceremoniously grabbing at the contents of the drawer. “They’re just shirts. They’re not, like, symbolic of anything.”

“It’s about letting old things go. So you can move on.”

“I _am_ moving on. You’re just depriving me of pajama tops.” She sinks back down onto the bed, clutching two handfuls of shirts. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“That you’re moving on?”

“Yeah.” She sets the shirts down in two little piles on either side of her. “Literally _moving_. The divorce is about to be finalized.” She picks at the material on one of the shirts. “We decided to sell the apartment.”

He drops the empty trash bag. Hearing her casually refer to Amilyn as part of a “we” is like pushing on a bruise.

“Why?”

She folds her legs underneath her again, as if she needs to buy a little extra time to formulate the words.

“I can’t afford the mortgage on my own. I tried, but it’s just too much with my loan payments. And apparently she needs the money, too. Turns out it’s really expensive to get a divorce. Maybe I should have just signed that prenup. Everyone told me not to, but we’d probably both be better off.” 

She lets out a single breathy laughing noise at the absurdity, but he barely hears it. His mind floods with possibilities. 

He turns his back to her and stands in front of the dresser, staring down at the open drawer, giving himself some privacy from her gaze.

“How soon do you need to find a new place?” 

“Well, it’s going to take awhile to—”

“Move in with me.” He shuts the drawer.

“ _What?_ ” 

Ben turns around, leaning against the dresser.

“Move into the loft. Or we can look for a new place. Together.”

“Like roommates?”

“No.” He drops his head for second, taking a breath, reminding himself to be fucking patient. “No, not like my roommate.” Lifting his head back up, he looks her in the eye. “Like the person I’m in love with.” 

The room is silent except for the occasional clank and hiss from the radiator.

He’d thought maybe her eyes would well up, that the corners her mouth would curve into a disbelieving smile and she’d slowly rise up from the bed and embrace him. They’d press their bodies together and hold each other, finally feeling that sense of _relief_. Nothing would be left unsaid.

But instead she just sits there, still, her mouth open like she’s about to say something, but nothing comes out. Like she’s perpetually suspended on the edge of admitting what she wants, and if he does nothing, she’ll just let herself stay in this spot forever.

He moves back toward the bed in a single step. Sitting back down beside her on the bed, he slowly reaches for one of her hands, giving her ample time to move away.

She doesn’t. 

Letting him take her hand, she watches as he runs his thumb across her knuckles. 

“Ben.” Her voice is low and quiet. “Saying that only makes this more complicated than it already is.” 

“I’m so fucking tired of _not_ saying it. I know this can work. I’m sure of it. I know you don’t think you’re ready. But you are.” He pulls her hand up to his lips and presses a kiss into her palm. 

“You can’t just skip that many steps and jump right into living together. I know this. I’ve done it. And there’s something else I need to—”

“We _didn’t_ skip the steps. What you do think we’ve been doing this whole time? We’ve been fucking dating, Rey, we just didn’t use the word. We only needed that final piece and now we have it.” 

He moves her hand down his cheek and it feels almost like she’s doing it of her own volition. 

Ben tilts his head and leans down, placing his other hand on the back of her head and pulling her into the kind of kiss they should have had before she fucking ran away last week. Her mouth is warm and open and inviting and says everything she can’t express in words. This is how he _knows_. This is how he’d known the first time they’d fumbled around in the Falcon. 

They fall back onto the mattress as he props himself up, with his knees on either side of her. 

“Both of us are still fucked up,” she says, looking up at the ceiling. “I need time. I’m—you said that I’m depressed.”

“Everyone’s fucked up. Over half the people in this fucking city are depressed.”

“Ben—” 

“Depressed people can be in relationships. There’s no such thing as the perfect time. We could be waiting forever.” 

He kisses down her chin to the hollow of her throat, listening to her breath get heavier and a little ragged as he sucks on a particular spot on her neck in a way that’s definitely going to leave a visible mark. 

“Ben—”

He goes for the fucking Lilith Fair shirt ( _of course Amilyn went to Lilith Fair_ ), lifting it by the hem and exposing the skin between the waistband of her shorts and her bralette. 

“You needing to move? This is a sign. It’s a fucking sign that this is right.”

Breathing a sigh of relief that they’re back on track, he lightly traces his finger around her ribcage and down to her belly button. There’s no reason to rush. _This is all for me now_. 

He lowers his face to her stomach, imagining what it would be like to playfully blow a raspberry onto the soft skin. It’s not something he’s ever done—ever wanted to do—but he can already picture her laughing and squirming a little bit in his head. 

In reality, she’s still a little stiff. Nervous. But he reminds himself that it started this way last time.

His fingers slip under the bralette.

“Ben!” The volume of her voice makes him pause. “I’m not looking for another apartment. I’m looking for another job.”

“What?” He stops moving.

“For the primaries. If I’m going to do this, it has to be now.”

He lifts up his head.

“You’re quitting your job?” She pulls her shirt back down to cover her belly.

“I’ve been there four years. I want to work for an actual progressive.”

“You’d leave the city?” he asks, knowing full well where early primaries take place. 

“Temporarily.” The New Hampshire primary is a year away. _A fucking year._ “Probably temporarily. Kinda depends on the voters.”

“What about me?” he asks, not bothering to filter out the desperate edge to his voice.

He sits up, mind racing too many steps ahead, sloppily calculating all the possible positive outcomes from this news. Because he’s not going to come _this_ fucking close to actually getting what he wants— _for once_ —and have it disintegrate because of the bullshit that is the American primary system. 

Images flash through his mind: driving to meet her at a ski lodge in Vermont. Cashing in his miles to visit her in South Carolina or California. It’s not like he has a reason to be in New York. He doesn’t have a reason to be anywhere. 

She could ask. She could ask him to come with her.

“I don’t think we should just—" she stops herself and exhales before continuing. "Long distance relationships don’t work.” She props herself up to a seated position. “Why can’t we still watch movies and text each other stupid shit for now? We can go back to the way things were. Before the sex part got in the way.”

 _God fucking dammit, NO._ He feels his hands balling into fists and unfurling and balling again. It’s an old coping mechanism.

“No. I don’t want to go back, Rey. You’d rather be lonely together? Over the phone? As friends? Listen to yourself.” He takes a deep breath, tamping down on the desperation. “Sex didn’t get in the way of anything. It opened something.”

“You’re not listening to me.” It sounds like a warning, but she doesn’t get just how much he already understands her. “I’m not ready to open anything right now. I’m still grieving.”

 _Grieving?_ No one died. She married the wrong person. _Marriages end all the time._

“No, you think you’re grieving because you’re still holding on to all this bullshit!” He grabs one of the cursed shirts and throws it down onto the wood floor with a surprising amount of force. “You need to let go. Of all of it. This can’t be a halfway thing.”

“I don’t want to be in a relationship right now. I can't.”

“That's the fear talking. Maybe I’m selfish. But I know what I want.” He leans closer to her, so that he can see her exact reaction to the words that are on the tip of his tongue. He has the heady, almost dizzying feeling like this is _it_. The last shot. “I want everything and I’ll giveyou everything. I know it could work. I _know_ it, Rey. I know you felt it, too.” 

A pause.

“I wish I could be what you want.” 

“You already are. You’re exactly what I want.” He reaches out and brushes his hand over her hair. “I know why you’ve been fighting it. You’re scared. But you don’t have to be scared anymore. We can do this together. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Ben.” Her head moves back, away from his hand, “Listen to me. I don’t want to do it again.” She shifts her whole body another inch away from him. “It always starts like this. You’re happy, you’re in love, you feel invincible, like everything’s insurmountable. Like none of your problems matter because there’s someone else to hold you at night. To be your everything. But sooner or later, all the stuff you push down comes back up again. Every stupid irritating thing about the other person becomes an argument. You start to blame them for all the ways that your life isn’t working out. You finally see it clearly because the goggles come off. And suddenly there isn’t any magic gluing the two of you together. You’re just two fucking idiots spending hundreds of dollars in lawyer’s fees over custody of plates and bowls and you both end up with less than you had before.”

“I’m not going to take your one bowl, Rey. You’re talking about your marriage, not us.”

“But I know how this ends, too.”

“How does it end?”

“Four years from now I’ll run into you in the Fairway in Red Hook. You’ll be pushing your two-year-old around in one of those bougie, expensive strollers, looking for organic grapes, while your wife picks out kombucha. And I’ll be the girl wearing some random man’s hockey jersey—”

“A hockey jersey?”

“—with no pants on, double fisting bottles of wine. I’ll be peeking around the corner, hoping you don’t see me and ask me how I’ve been. And I don’t want to go through that with you. I don’t want...” Her face scrunches up suddenly. “I don’t want to see you with a fucking kid.” 

Her chest heaves a little bit and tears start to steam down her cheeks. Ben looks away, moving his jaw, tensing against the impulse to allow his own eyes to well up. He waits until her crying jag subsides a bit and she sniffles. 

“How do you know we wouldn’t be buying organic grapes together in four years?” Rey’s expression changes, but not in a way that helps him decipher any kind of meaning. “I promise you, I will _never_ set foot in the Fairway in Brooklyn. But I’ll buy you whatever fucking grapes you want in Manhattan.” He pauses. “The kombucha. The stroller. All of it.”

“I don’t want anyone to make promises to me.” She looks exhausted. He stands up again, needing the higher ground. It feels like a half-hearted tug-of-war. “I don’t want to get lost in someone else. I need to get my own life in order.”

His frustration starts to roll into resentment. The harder he pulls on the rope, the more it frays. 

“What the hell do you think _my_ life is like?” He starts to pace in a tight circle. “Every fucking day I wake up, and remember that I have no job, no reason to be on this planet, and I make up a bunch of stupid bullshit to do until it’s time to go to sleep and do it all over again. Almost everyone who knows who I am hates me. When I meet someone new, I have to recite some speech about what a monster I was for eight years before they can read about it on Google.” He stops pacing. “Do you realize the only thing I look forward to every fucking day is talking to you?”

“But that’s exactly why this won’t work. I told you, so many times, Ben. You don’t _listen_. I don’t want to be the only person you can talk to.”

He can tell from her body language that his anger is rattling her, but he can’t stop. 

“I’m not waiting for more time to pass. I’ve wasted enough of my fucking life. I’m not going backward. I’m not just going to be your friend again. Either we’re doing this, or…”

He hasn’t really thought through the end of the sentence, but an ultimatum worked once. He looks into her eyes, until he sees the tears well up again, and she yanks the rope back.

“I don’t owe you a relationship just because we had sex.”

They stare at each other. 

Her breath stutters and her nose scrunches up as the tears start to fall. 

It’s not supposed to go this way. He’s supposed to be looking at his fucking girlfriend. He’s supposed to be soaking in the new relationship energy, letting himself replay the _I love you_ over and over in his head, finally allowing himself to believe it. He’s supposed have his face buried her pussy, with her knees pressing against his ears, so he can just barely hear her moaning. 

But instead he’s looking at yet another person who just wants him to fucking disappear. 

_Fine_. _FINE._

Fuck. All. Of. This.

She can have her wish. 

He slides off the bed, stepping on the shirts strewn around the floor. Walking out to the living room he picks his coat and his fucking overnight bag up off the floor and silently exits the apartment. She can take the pasta machine. Let it collect dust in South Carolina or California, or wherever the hell she wants to run away to. 

He leaves their dinner in the oven to burn. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry. 
> 
>  
> 
> Fuck. 
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll just provide these links quickly and quietly: [Red Hen](https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/us/red-hen-reopens-trnd/index.html), [Left Behind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind_\(2014_film\)), [Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102685/characters/nm0000206), [Radiance Tea Room](https://radiancetea.com/) (an awesome place), [Bartlet for America (The West Wing)](https://tv.avclub.com/the-west-wing-bartlet-for-america-1798168933), Gourmet Garage and Fairway are both “nice” grocery stores in NYC. For non-American readers, Rey is talking about working on the ground with a campaign in the 2020 Democratic primary. 
> 
> Oh and…Ben used his first emoji. 😭


	18. Dancing On My Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Rey and Ben got into a pretty serious argument when Rey revealed that she's leaving for a new job opportunity. Ben wanted them both to be "all in," but Rey didn't feel ready for that. Ben stormed out, leaving a lasagna burning in the oven. 
> 
> This time: Our space children have some lingering resentment and jealousy issues? I'm shocked! Consider "Poe's birthday party" the bookend to "Rose's singles mixer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends!
> 
> I'm putting a **SPOILER-Y CONTENT WARNING(?)/NOTE IN THE END NOTES.** If you want to read it in advance, please scroll down to the bottom. If you follow me on twitter or remember "that" poll, maybe you have some idea what this is regarding. 
> 
> I have a beautiful new mood board (below!), courtesy of [spotsnstripes](https://twitter.com/spotsnstripes1), who actually did a re-read of the fic so far and left amazing, epic comments that were so fun to read (and helpful for me to remember WTF happened earlier in the story). 
> 
> I also have two wonderful pieces of art to share: [spiegatrix surprised me with this gorgeously colored piece](https://twitter.com/spiegatrix/status/1096611425903099904) that is _so_ perfectly When Harry Met Sally. And Rey eating the black and white cookie? I love it. I've been a huge fan of her art for a long time and I can’t wait to read her fic now that I’m posting this update finally. 
> 
> Secondly, I should have mentioned this one last time, but [tm2taughtmefamlaw created this amazing interpretation of the big New Years kiss](https://twitter.com/tm2taughtmefam1/status/1089734433496752128), on the suggestion for [blessmycircuits](https://twitter.com/blessmycircuits). She let me know we cannot see Ben’s hands because they are under Rey’s coat. I appreciate that level of attention to detail. And read her fics, too, because they’re some of my favorites! 
> 
> I love all of this art so much that I printed it all and framed it. 
> 
> I also want to call out a piece of [ selunchen](https://twitter.com/selunchen) art that wasn’t made for this story at all, but that really inspired this chapter. [ I had always had this Robyn song in my head for this part of the story](https://twitter.com/selunchen/status/1085529193700605952), but this sealed the deal. [Selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen) also been an amazing sounding board for this chapter (and everything coming after). She and [delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum) have been _invaluable_ feedback-givers, especially when I first dropped the bomb about what I wanted to do in this chapter. They are truly the devil and angel on my surprisingly angst-y shoulders.
> 
> Two inspiration songs for this chapter: [Dancing On My Own by Robyn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J294A-R1Cjk) and [A Pain That I’m Used To by Depeche Mode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxrSS0PT-pY).

 

 

[](https://ibb.co/VYnzqvk)

 

* * *

 

Rey is quiet in the front seat of the Uber, staring out the passenger window, while Rose looks at the nanny cam on her phone. 

“We good?” Finn asks, peering over her shoulder. 

“The camera must have been pushed over or something, there’s a bad angle on the living room.” She squints at the screen. “Unless...she did it.” 

Rose is always two steps ahead of anyone, especially unproven babysitters. 

“Do you want to go back?” he asks, hoping his tone is sufficiently discouraging.

His wife performs some complex calculation, first in her head, and then out loud. 

“We’re already in Manhattan and we’d have to come up with an excuse for coming back and then you’d have to distract her while I fix the camera, and then go through the goodbye thing again and—”

“Okay,” he says, gently pushing her phone down a few inches, “so we’ll just try not to act like the crazy people we used to make fun of and enjoy our one evening out on our friend’s birthday. Sound good?”

Usually Rey would participate in this back and forth. Taking one side, and then the other. Getting in some gentle digs on both of them. 

But she’s been somber in the week that she’s been crashing at their apartment. Finn had forced a little bit of the story out of her on the first night, when they had stayed up late, watching _Abducted in Plain Sight,_ and drinking whiskey out of child-proof plastic juice cups. 

She hadn’t divulged much. Just that she and Ben had “hooked up” a few days after Rose’s singles mixer and that, later, they had “both” agreed it had been a “mistake.”

He still hasn’t told her about Rose’s lengthy back-and-forth conversations with Ben. It’s an uncomfortable half-lie that they’ve both been sitting with, waiting for Rey’s version of the story to catch up to Ben’s. 

They ride in relative quiet up the West Side Highway and over to Ninth Avenue, Rose resting her head on the shoulder of his puffy North Face jacket. 

“Subtle, as usual,” she remarks, as they pull up to the bar. “When he said ‘Cowboy hats suggested,’ I didn’t think he meant it so literally.”

Finn had seen the name “Flaming Saddles” on the group text, but he hadn’t internalized what it inevitably must be. The exterior is outfitted in red painted wood, neon, and pride flags.

“Have you been here, Rey?” he asks, climbing out of the car behind Rose. 

“I have vague memories of line dancing bartenders and Poe in chaps.” She shuts the passenger door as the car pulls away. 

“Like I said, _subtle_.” Rose pushes the door open and some 90s-sounding country song blasts from the sound system. 

It’s not a huge place, but the inside is as tastefully decorated as one might expect. The walls are lined in a deep red brocade, like a brothel on steroids. Under a massive animal skull, at a table opposite the long, wooden bar, Poe holds court, surrounded by a bevy of mostly tank top- or plaid shirt- wearing men. 

He breaks into a smile when he sees the three of them, eyes already slightly glassy. 

“Where are your hats?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They’ve texted here and there, but Rey hasn’t seen Poe since she left The Resistance office with her cardboard box full of four years-worth of accumulated crap. 

At the time, he had actually seemed more stung than Lando. They’d never talked about leaving _together_ ; surely he wouldn’t have expected that. 

She hadn’t thought so, at least.

To be fair, she could have given him more warning. But they hadn’t quite fully reconciled after _that_ weekend and, in the last few weeks, neither of them have opened it back up for debate. 

The truth is, she hasn’t talked to _anyone_ about _anything_ , except in the most abstract, obtuse terms. She can’t take the advice, the coddling, the caretaking that would come from Rose and Finn if she revealed how broken she’d felt when Ben left her apartment without even slamming the door. And she doesn’t want an _I told you so_ from Poe. Or Han, for that matter. 

The sharp pain in the wake of their argument had yielded to a persistent, dull ache after a few days. Like terrible fucking cramps. 

She’s still waiting for something. 

He hasn’t sent her angry messages.  
He hasn’t asked a friend— _who?_ —to come over and pick up his goddamn pasta machine, which is now sitting in Rose and Finn’s lower cabinet. 

Just radio silence. 

So she does the only thing that’s ever worked and pushes it all down. And, for once, she doesn’t fill the empty space with Tinder snacks. She has a new job— _a new life, really_ —to look forward to. And it has nothing to do with complicated emotions and sex and being held tightly and letting herself believe that everything might be okay, even though there’s always going to be a part of her brain that knows it isn’t, so why bother fooling herself? 

Yeah, it has nothing to do with any of that. 

She’ll have a new city to explore. And a car, which means grocery shopping without a granny cart. And she’ll meet people who don’t know her and won’t ask questions that will cut too deep. 

No one will think to inquire about her recurring dreams in which a triceratops speaks to her in Ben’s voice.

Which is definitely not a thing that’s been happening. 

 

Rey lets Finn and Rose move in front of her to greet Poe, who’s already well on his way to a hangover. He’s standing next to the ginger from the singles mixer, which is an unwelcome surprise. Everything about that man’s sneer reminds her of that stupid night. And how are those two still a thing, anyway? 

Rose and Finn immediately head to the bar— _bless them, they need these overpriced drinks on a school night_ —while Poe pulls her into a clumsy, vodka-fueled hug, rocking back and forth.

“I forgot to text you,” he says into her ear, not in a whisper, because it’s far too loud for that, but in a tone that’s obviously supposed to be intimate. “Ben’s here. Hope that’s okay.”

_Ben?_

It sounds almost like a dare. She’s sure her expression falters for a second, but she recovers quickly enough before she has to pull her head back and look him in the eye. 

Stopping herself from asking why Ben would be coming to Poe’s party, she assures him, “Of course. We’re adults.” It couldn’t be further from the truth.

Her mind races as the three men climb up on the bar and begin some ridiculously sexual dance routine. _Oh yes_. She has been here before. The crowd around Poe surges foward to face the bar and she stares blankly ahead as the three tank top-wearing bartenders perform some impressively intricate footwork to a Shania Twain medley. 

_What if Ben wants to talk? Is that why he’s here?_

The thought of seeing him again tonight, when she’s not prepared, when she’s on the verge of leaving for God-knows how long, when she’s been keeping everything bottled up—it makes her heart clench and leap, simultaneously. She catches herself looking expectantly around the cramped room for a disapproving, out-of-place giant, dressed in black.

The song transitions into the drumbeat from “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Rose is right; this place _is_ subtle.

It might be good to see him again: to know that he’s not sulking around the loft, thinking terrible things about her, now that a few weeks have passed. It would give them both some closure before she leaves, wouldn’t it? Assuming he wants closure in the same way that she does.

She’s watching a bartender with bejeweled chaps grab the cowboy hat from Poe’s head when she hears the comment, coming from behind her, cutting through the music. 

“This is so fucking unsanitary.” 

Like he could hear her thoughts. She’s surprised at how relieved she feels, hearing the specific timbre of Ben’s voice. It’s a good sign, probably—that she wants to turn around and talk, rather than bolt. Maybe they can fix this: be friends again, somehow. 

Without thinking—without planning it—she turns toward him.

“At least they’re wearing shoes,” she replies. 

There, facing her, frowning, is Ben. He’s wearing his nice cashmere coat—but no scarf—and one of those soft-looking, very touchable shirts. Part of her just wants slide her hand under the lapel and feel the dark material. And judging by the looks he’s getting from some of the men around them, she’s not exactly alone in that. 

But Rey’s hands remain at her sides.

Because he looks genuinely surprised to see her. And he’s standing next to a tall, curvaceous woman with long, dark blonde hair— 

—who is holding his hand.

It’s not that her heart drops down to her belly. It’s just— _unexpected._

_He hadn’t been talking to me._ She blinks. 

Ben looks almost expressionless for a few seconds, like he’s trying to decide whether to click _continue_ or _cancel_ on the whole interaction. 

Rey’s brain begins generating questions to which she can’t possibly know the answers. 

_Who is she?_ She doesn’t look familiar. Tinder? Coffee Meet Bagel? Hinge? _Leia?_  
_When did this...?_ Obviously recently, but the hand holding would seem to indicate that it’s not a first date.  
_Why?_ Actually, she has a pretty good idea about the answer to that.

Her eyes keep automatically glancing down to the clasped hands. 

“I’m Rey,” she chokes out, extending her right hand. It forces the woman to unclasp in order to reciprocate the handshake. It’s probably an unconscious thing. 

“Hi! I’m Harper,” the woman says loudly, over the blaring music. Her hand is warm. So they’ve probably been holding hands for awhile. Outside. In the cold. While they walked over here together. 

Hand in hand. 

As a couple. 

_Which is fine._

Of course she’s a Harper. Of course she’s wearing a little black dress that shows off curves that Rey doesn’t quite have. Of course she has a pretty smile and dimples and full fucking lips and...well, honestly, if they had met under another circumstance, she’d be checking out Harper in a slightly more lascivious way. 

Of course they immediately re-clasp their hands. 

“So great to meet you,” Rey says, tapping into the same technique she had sometimes used on Amilyn’s saltier acquaintances: over-the-top friendliness. Harper has a thousand watt smile? Rey kicks it up to a million watts, like she _could not be happier_ that Ben is holding hands with her. 

It’s vaguely reminiscent of her scroll through Paige’s Instagram feed. Rey wonders if this woman is similarly couples-selfie inclined. (“Just checkin’ in at Flaming Saddles with my boo! #randomthursday #mycrazylife lulz—”)

Suddenly, the music changes into some 2000s-era club hit and a cheer goes up among the rest of the crowd. The bartenders hop off the bar.

“Finally, I can get a drink,” Rey says, with another huge smile, even though she’s only had one solitary drink in the last four weeks. “See you later!” She _beams_ at them. At least, she hopes it looks like beaming. 

As she steps away, she hears Ben caution Harper to “wait until they’ve wiped off the bar first” and something pinches in Rey’s chest.

There’s probably a back hallway here, maybe near the bathroom? There must be. She pushes past the clump of men around the bar. 

It could have been worse. She could’ve been wearing a cowboy hat during the encounter. 

_Ben-and-Harper_. A couple. They sound like names that would pair well on a wedding website. She runs the questions again, torturing herself with the possible answers, as she finally angles past one last group of guys, looking back just to be sure no one followed her. 

Ben hadn’t. 

_Good._ _Why should he?_

But apparently Poe had trailed her to the end of the bar, because he taps her shoulder. 

She looks at him, repeating the question in her head. Despite any rift in their friendship, they must still be a bit telepathic, because Poe hears it, loud and clear.

“He met her through Hux. They’ve only gone out a couple times. The four of us saw _A Star is Born_ together. And, no, I didn’t know he was going to bring her.”

“Really?”

_Fine. That is so totally fine. Suddenly, Ben wants to_ casually _date someone. Apparently it's not all-or-nothing with Harper._

Poe also hears the follow up questions to which Rey both does and doesn’t want the answers. 

“She works for the UN or something.”

“Like one of those people who ride in the cars with the ‘Diplomat’ license plates that illegally park in bus lanes without consequence?” _Of course it doesn’t matter that they’re sitting very close together on a banquette against the opposite wall._

“Yeah. Exactly. Cool perk, right?” _It doesn’t matter that Ben’s hand is resting casually above her knee._

“She seems a little...stuffy.” 

“Ben’s a little stuffy.” _And now his hand might—possibly—be gripping Harper's thigh._

“He doesn’t even believe in the UN,” she says, almost under her breath.

“You should talk to her, get to know her. She’s a good height for him.” Rey gives him a look. “Just saying.” He returns that look and a little extra. “Does it bother you?”

_And it’s possible that Ben might be glancing over in her direction, but he could also be noticing the shirtless bartender behind her and Poe._

“Of course not.”

And then it kind of seems like he’s not glancing over at all because he’s leaning over this woman and tilting her head a bit and then Rey can’t really see their faces anymore because they’re—

_Yeah._

_Okay._

_That’s how it is._

_Of course it’s fine._

Because it means he’s moved on. Which is what she wanted. 

_Yeah._

_Fine._

“Rey?” Poe probably nudges her or something, but she’s already backing away, towards the hallway. 

How nice for him. He has someone to do all that couple-y bullshit with. Someone who actually wants to go to a party together and hold his hand. 

_Fantastic._

The bathroom is back here somewhere, she’s sure of it. Her vision blurry with tears, she feels along the side of wood-paneled wall, searching for a swinging door. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It feels both satisfying and sickening: watching Rey glance down at their hands. Several times. Making her hurt in the same way that he had for ten days after he left her apartment. 

_Fuck her_. 

Certain memories have already lodged in his brain, expanding and contracting over the last three weeks: 

Walking to the train, with an angry sound ringing in his ears from the shock of their last interaction.  
Riding the elevator up to the fifth floor, torturing himself by replaying every fucking thing they’d done together, right next to all the hurtful things she’d just uttered like none of it had made a bit of difference.  
Waiting for her to call and apologize. Hearing _nothing_. Fucking immersing himself in suffering until it almost feels _good_ to wallow in it. 

He had gone over to her place like a fucking fool. With a carefully packed overnight bag. Offered her a place to live. He had finally told her things he’d been holding in for months. 

And she had watched him do all of that and still— _fuck_ , it gets worse—she’d actually waited a whole week to say something. 

An _entire fucking week_. 

He’d raged for a day or two. It had been all too easy to tap into that part of himself again—the “difficult” teenager. Except now there hadn’t been an adult to disapprove and punish him and apologetically ask the housekeeper to clean up the broken shit. 

Eventually, the anger had burned off. He’d found himself sleeping a lot, having the same kind of recurring dreams— _replicative nightmares_ , technically—that he’d had right after the slashing. He had missed a therapy appointment. There are things that are just too big to explain to your therapist in a fifty minute session. Better to go without and wait until he gets a handle on the narrative. 

He doesn’t want the fucking help right now anyway.

Telling Leia that she shouldn’t text Rey about any more “family dinners” had been particularly humiliating. A few days later, Rose had sent him a message saying that Rey would be staying with them before her official move to South Carolina, and that she didn’t feel right continuing their text conversation. With that, his last tether to Rey had snapped. 

For a few days, he hadn’t spoken to another person. Hadn’t gone outside. He’d just sat on the sofa with his slowly dissipating fury and embarrassment hanging heavy in the air. Like an inflatable mattress with the tiniest leak—every fucking thing in the loft reminding him of some stupid thing Rey had said or done to provoke him. To make him want more than she was ever going to give. And she knew— _she fucking knew the whole time_ —that she was doing it. 

It wasn’t until Hux had tracked him down again, catching him in a moment of weakness—when he would have talked to _anyone_ willing to communicate—that he had finally cleaned himself up. It had felt good to put on something that didn’t have an elastic waistband and walk over to La Columbe and meet another human being for a seven dollar coffee. 

Contributing a few hundred words a day to Hux’s shitty hour of faux outrage at least gives him something to do. 

And new people to meet. 

Harper is the definition of a _nice girl._ She’s compassionate. She supports the arts. She loves dogs, for fuck’s sake. 

He owes it to himself to try this. To take a girl from Connecticut— _or was it Philly? No, Connecticut_ —with big brown eyes and full lips for the most standard date possible. Just dinner or a drink. Maybe move in for a slightly awkward kiss, at her doorstep. It would be perfectly fine and nothing more. There wouldn’t be any stomach-tightening, slowly churning agony. No frustrated, angry jacking off alone in a dark bedroom at the end of the night. 

It’s much better. It’s very healthy. _It’s what I deserve_. 

So what if he can’t help watching the back of Rey’s head as she maneuvers through the crowd to get away from him? Her hair is half down tonight. She’s wearing tight black pants and some kind of light colored top that’s hanging loosely off her shoulder, but cropped, so that her stomach peaks out every so often. He’d pretend not look, but what the fuck kind of difference does it make now? 

She doesn’t fucking want him. So she can stand there and watch him hold Harper’s hand and pretend to be fine with it. And then she can wake up tomorrow and torture herself with that stupid fucking voicemail, knowing she’s never getting another one.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey takes some deep breaths. She pushes her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She thinks about chonky cats calmy squeezing themselves into slightly too-small boxes. Anything to stop the threat of tears. 

She’s not going to cry in front of him. Or his date. 

Or Poe. Or anyone who wants to give her “friendly” advice based on the ten words that she’s uttered about the situation in the last three weeks. 

Still, there’s something tight pulling on her throat. All it would take is the slightest push— _one wrong thought_ —to permeate the crying barrier. It’s a sick little game, stepping so close to the edge. The thoughts drift across her mind, almost taunting her.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent health scares.  
The way that Prince Harry looks at Meghan Markle and then remembering that she’s fucking _pregnant_.  
The slightest scratch of a stale muffin crumb on the sheet under your back. 

_Shit_ , why do brains do this?

Opening her little cross-shoulder purse, she pulls out a one-hitter and a lighter and prays that she won’t need this _more_ in a half hour. Rey doesn’t smoke at Rose and Finn’s; she can spare this one indulgence. 

For a few minutes, there’s some peace. Her mind starts to float a little bit, numbing some of the jagged edges. 

Actually...

_Damn. It’s kinda strong._

She stares at the wall next to the sink. All the little tags and notes and phone numbers written with various pens. She examines a confusing message written in Sharpie: “Baby Fish Mouth.” Apparently she’s not the only person who comes in this lonely women’s bathroom to get a little bit high. 

She’s about to sit her ass down on the cleanest part of the disgusting restroom floor when the door slams open. It’s surprising, since roughly ninety-four percent of the patrons are male. Four women crowd into the restroom, all talking at once. Probably a bachelorette party. Rey braces herself for them to “wooo hooo,” at her even though it’s specifically against the rules at this bar. 

But the “wooo hooo” doesn’t come. Nor are there tiaras or sashes or penis name tags. 

Instead, she sees things that are much more intriguing. 

Beautifully tan skin and curly hair.  
A hotter version of her elementary school art teacher.  
A short and curvy woman with great tits and cool glasses.  
Thighs like a fucking Amazon. 

_Ben, who?_ she almost says aloud. God really _is_ a woman. 

The next hour is a tequila-soaked blur. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“They produce a podcast about explicit fanfiction,” Dameron explains, as they watch Rey down another round of shots with a loud group of four women. “They’re helping me get set up with all the equipment, teaching me how to edit. All the production stuff.”

“Explicit fanfiction?” Harper asks, getting out her phone. “What’s, uh, the name of that podcast?”

Ben doesn’t really hear the answer because the women all move slightly away from the bar, carving out a little dance floor of their own as the music changes from country to pop songs he vaguely remembers hearing at some point in the last ten years. They’d been at the bar for at least twenty minutes, pouring drinks down each others throats and licking salt off each other’s necks and breasts. 

“Body shots,” Dameron had helpfully informed him as he’d watched a woman with wavy hair and impossibly long limbs lick a stripe of salt off Rey’s stomach. Yeah, he knows what fucking body shots are.

The bar is darker now, but the colored spotlights reflect off the shiny, metal ceiling and when the angle is right, he can see pretty clearly. These women all seem _very_ interested in Rey. Touching her, grinding up against her. 

Not that it bothers him. 

_It’s just dancing._

He soothes his mind with that thought when he can still reasonably convince himself that what he’s seeing is dancing. 

_It’s just touching_. 

Touching happens when people dance. It’s normal. It’s fine that a woman with curly hair and a boisterous laugh has her arms around Rey and begins to caress her back and her hips as they move.

_It’s just..._

The woman moves her hands from the side of Rey’s hips down around the curve of her ass. 

She’s fucking palming it. A burning sensation tears through his chest. _That belongs to me._

Except it doesn’t. He reminds himself— _forces himself_ —to take a calming breath, counting in his head as he exhales. It doesn’t matter; his pulse is still racing.

He keeps watching anyway. 

Somebody’s hand—there seems to be more than one person touching her now—moves up her torso, over her breast, lingering for a moment, to the back of her neck. With the way the lights are flashing, he can’t quite tell. They’re barely pretending to move with the rhythm of the song. It’s just tacky exhibitionism at this point. 

_And yet._

He can’t hear a word of the conversation around him anymore. Just the music, thumping like a heartbeat, as he remains fixated on whatever is unfolding twelve feet away. _Is he the only person seeing this?_

Rey tilts her head back and reaches her arms out to another woman with impossibly long legs. _How had Poe found this podcast?_ The movement lifts her shirt. Which exposes a lot of skin. Which reminds him of her lying naked in his bed while he just barely grazes her stomach with his fingers, making her shiver. 

_Fuck_. He feels a sheen of sweat on his forehead. 

She’s loose-limbed. Pliable. And probably incredibly drunk. 

Is this the kind of thing she does when she goes out? He’s never really let himself picture it quite like this, but now he’s staring at the scene with the slack-jawed expression of a boy who’s stumbled upon porn for the first time. 

The woman with curly hair cups Rey’s jaw in her hand, while a shorter woman with an aggressively asymmetrical haircut moves behind her. 

Ben knows what’s going to happen in that split second. He knows he should just… _Not_. Look. At. This. 

Except. It’s also…a bit…

_FUCK._

The taller woman threads her fingers through Rey’s hair, pulling her into a kiss. 

Someone might be nudging him, or saying his name. Or maybe Hux passes by, wearing a cowboy hat. Ben wouldn’t know. Nothing could unglue his eyes from watching this, with a mix of envy and— _fuck it_ —desire. 

How has this kind of scenario never occurred to him? In brief flashes maybe, but god-fucking-dammit why had he never let this one play out before? 

He needs to look away. _Now_. Before things get, well, _noticeable_ , in this gay bar, where he’s already attracted more than his fair share of attention. 

But he can’t force his eyes away, because even from this distance he can see the woman bite Rey’s lower lip, before they break the kiss. The shorter woman reaches for Rey’s shoulder, turning her around. She strokes a hand down her cheek, looking deep into her eyes. 

Even though it’s probably impossible over the volume of the music, he swears to fucking God he hears one of them ask, “Do you like getting tied up?” 

Ben loses his goddamn mind. Some primal, adrenaline-powered response just takes over. He feels himself nearly knocking his date’s drink out of her hand while he tries to stand up. 

_To leave_? Why should he cede the space to Rey and her antics? 

_To scold her?_ She doesn’t fucking deserve _more_ of his attention. 

But he’s already standing, and Harper and Dameron are looking at him quizzically, so he needs to do something. 

Leaving is the best option. At least he won’t have to subject himself to more forced voyeurism.

“Want to get some air?” he asks, turning around to address his date. She doesn’t look _pleased_ , exactly, but she gets up. He grabs his Loro Piano Shuttle Coat and can’t help but notice that the cashmere smells like Tex-Mex bar food. 

“Hey!” a voice shouts behind him. “Are you-you’re going? You were gonna say goodbye?” She’s slurring her words. 

Rey stumbles a bit walking over to the table. He’s seen her drunk before. But this feels different. Almost pathetic. Needy. Desperate for attention. She’s probably expecting him to drop everything and take care of her. 

He’s not going to give her the satisfaction. 

Finn swoops in to hand her a water, which she sips before handing it right back.

“I just heard this—” she continues, “it’s my new favorite saying. ‘At any moment, we’re all just two people away from a threesome.’ It’s r-really super comforting.” 

She might be looking at Harper when she says this, but her eyes aren’t exactly focusing. 

“How many times do I need to tell you, Rey?” Finn replies, pushing the water toward her again. “Rose and I aren’t doing that with you. It doesn't matter how nicely you ask.”

“You look very tall together.” she continues, ignoring Finn’s interjection, shifting her gaze between Ben and Harper. “ _Very_ tall. Love that for you.”

He rolls his eyes. When you fight with a fucking drunk, you lose every time. 

“Rey,” Rose says, more firmly than Finn, “drink the water.”

She reaches for Harper’s hand, instead of the water. 

“You-you are _lovely_ ,” she says, before turning to Ben. “And I just wanted to say—” 

“Maybe we should take you home,” Rose continues, talking over Rey. “I was worried about the sitter anyway.”

“—that I’m gonna miss you and I’m-I want you to be happy. Or w-whatever you want to be.”

 _No._ She doesn’t get to tie a fucking bow on it like this. She doesn't get to pretend like nothing happened.

“What?” she asks. Her chaotic, alcohol-fueled energy seems to kick up a bit in the silence. “You don’t wanna talk to me? I thought I was the _only_ person you ever wanted to talk to on the entire planet.” 

He remains silent, though he feels his jaw grinding.

She’s baiting him? She wants to pretend like she didn’t stomp all over his fucking heart less than a month ago? With no apology? After leaving him hanging for a fucking _week_ when she _knew_ exactly what was going to happen? Because she still wants it both ways. 

_No_. She’s going to think about this forever and feel terrible about it. 

So Ben keeps his mouth shut. _Let her make a fool out of herself in front of her friends._

“What is she going on about?” Hux stage whispers to Poe, loud enough to be heard over the music. “Is it because she said ‘I love you’ while they were fucking—”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Rose and Finn glance at each other. 

“—because no one here wants to hear about your night in the _Bachelor_ Fantasy Suite.”

He has a vague sense that Harper excuses herself at this point, mumbling something about the restroom, but it looks like she heads for the door. Yet another thing to feel awful about; yet another thing Rey has fucking ruined for him.

He jams his arm into the sleeve of his coat.

“We’re gonna carry this thing around forever? I’m _moving_ in two days. And you want to leave it like this? I just want us to be okay with each other.”

Okay _with each other? Okay?_

Something in him—the restraining bolt that had been keeping his mouth shut—snaps. 

“ ‘Forever?’ It _just_ happened.”

“Don’t do this at my party,” Dameron pipes up. “Come on.”

“It happened _three weeks_ ago.”

“Did that give you enough time to fuck all of the other people you wanted to before leaving the city?”

It seems to take a few seconds for Rey to process the words; she looks like she’s been smacked across the face. 

Someone scolds him, but it doesn’t matter. He hadn’t misspoken. He fucking wants her to hurt. He wants her move all the way to fucking South Carolina crying about this, knowing she was wrong. Knowing she made the biggest fucking mistake of her life. 

“I didn’t—” she backs away, nearly knocking over an empty chair behind her. “I haven’t—”

Her eyes flood with tears as she turns and weaves through the crowd, heading for the front door, without her jacket. 

“This is why I don’t invite straight people to my parties,” Hux observes, using the reverse camera on his phone to check the angle of his cowboy hat. “They can’t just fuck each other and move on with their bloody boring lives.” 

Ben elbows his way toward the exit, ignoring someone—maybe Finn or Dameron—calling his name. 

He bursts through the door, seeing no one, at first, except for a group of smokers huddled together in a circle. Turning towards 52nd Street, he sees Rey leaning against the red trim on side of the building, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“What do you want from me?” she says, sullenly. 

“ _You?_ I’m looking for my fucking date.” He takes his phone out of his pocket. “Or were you trying to fuck her, too?” 

He turns away from her, taking a few steps north and looks toward 53rd Street, but there’s no sign of Harper. 

“It didn’t have to go this way,” she says. He can see her cheeks glistening under the light from the neon signs in the window.

“Yes it _did_!” he almost shouts, as the smokers turns their heads with mild interest. “Because you said you loved me and then left so fast you had a fucking cloud of dust trailing behind you. Just admit it meant _something_ to you.”

“It _did_ mean something! But why does it have to mean _everything_?” 

“Because it fucking _does_.” 

Another version of Ben Solo would drive his fist into the brick wall to her left. He would fuck up his hand and need surgery and physical therapy for months afterward. This version only clenches his fist and _thinks_ about what it would feel like to punch the wall. How the pain would take over his mind for awhile. 

But that won’t work anymore. 

He’s not sure why he knows that, but he does. 

Just like he knows that he’s not going to go back to the loft tonight. He’s not going to pine for Rey all over his duvet cover.

“You don’t get to do this,” he says, stepping back from her. The crying is nothing more than another manipulation. Not a goddamn thing has changed. “I have the fucking right to be angry with you for however long I want to be. You want closure?”

“Yes.” She looks at him, breathing hard. 

“I’m finished with this. There’s your closure. You need therapy, Rey. But we both know you don’t want to hear that, so just go have your fucking fivesome instead.”

He walks south, with no destination, and for no reason other than to get the hell away from her. His ears pick up the sound of someone throwing up on the sidewalk behind him. But it might not be her; it’s New York, after all. He doesn’t turn around. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

An hour and a half later, Rey curls up on the couch under a fleece blanket. The room still spins when she moves her head. For what feels like the tenth time this evening, Rose thrusts a glass of water into her hand. This time she drinks it. And takes an Advil. 

She thinks she also got sick in the bathroom at the bar, but she doesn’t quite remember that portion of the evening. It’s probably for the best. At least she didn’t throw up in the cab back to Brooklyn.

Rose knows better than to remark on it right now. She turns on the TV (with the volume low, since Alice and Finn are asleep) and they silently stare at an episode of _That 70s Show_. It always seems to be on this one weird channel they get with the antenna. 

They’ve done their share of dragging each other’s asses back home at the end of the night—before they both got married, at least. It’s best to save the _what-were-you-thinking?_ conversation for brunch the next day. But there won’t be any brunch this time because tomorrow is Friday and one of them still has a job. 

Rose will leave the apartment tomorrow and continue changing the world, millimeter by millimeter. And Rey will nurse a hangover and continue waiting for her new life to finally start. 

It’s okay. She’s used to waiting. 

Sometimes it’s almost like she prefers it to living. 

Rose nudges her.

“We’ll come visit. I promise. Like...every other month.”

Rey knows it’s a lie. They can barely take a long weekend trip to the Hudson Valley without it being a whole production. But she nods and rests her head on Rose’s shoulder, anyway. 

“It’s supposed to be beautiful along the coast,” she says. “And no snow.” She’s not quite ready to face losing them, too.

“And you’ll be back all the time.” 

“For Alice’s birthday,” she agrees, even though there’s a good chance she’ll miss it. “I have this whole idea for her present. It’s this—” _Shit_. _Why does everything seem to circle back to Ben?_ “—this whole elaborate space concept.” 

“Well you _are_ her godlessmother. Of course you want to expose her to science.”

They both laugh and the way Rose’s shoulders shake makes Rey’s head spin and ache again.

It’s quiet for a few moments, except for the canned laughter from the TV. 

“I’m scared,” Rey says, just above a whisper. “I’m gonna be alone.”

Rose squeezes her shoulders. 

“You moved here on your own. You didn’t know anyone.”

“I met you like two minutes after I—” _stepped out of the Falcon._

Rose doesn’t need her to finish the sentence out loud. She squeezes her shoulders again and increases the TV volume a little bit. Like that will push Ben’s voice out of her mind.

At least she’s too exhausted to replay it tonight. That’s what tomorrow is for. 

It’s not like she’d expected Ben to wait for her to change her mind about everything. He could be sitting by himself in the loft forever, waiting in vain. It reminds her too much of her childhood. 

That’s the hardest part, really: the tipping point between not-impossible and hopeless. It’s one of the steps, maybe. Twelve steps? That sounds right. Accepting what you can’t change? Something like that. It sounds hard. 

She unlocks her phone and opens her saved audio files, swiping left over Ben’s voicemail. Her finger hovers over the DELETE option.

She lifts her finger back up, inhaling sharply.

_Maybe not just yet._

Rose’s breathing gets slower and steadier. 

Rey puts the phone down and lets herself nod off to the sound of Kelso’s laugh, her head still on Rose’s shoulder. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _Fucking Brooklyn_.

It’s a cold walk from the train and Ben can’t quite remember the building. He pulls out his phone to confirm the address again, willing himself not to lose his nerve. 

He stomps up the stoop and jabs at the buzzer without thinking. _Fuck_. It’s a school night. He could wake someone up. He’s about to text and apologize, but there’s a sudden ear-piercing, oscillating sound and the lock softly clicks. He wrenches the door open, walking straight to the stairs, taking them two at a time, trying to remember if he needs to turn right or left at the landing. 

In any case, the door opens slightly as he approaches it, like maybe she'd heard him bounding up the stairs.

He’s never sent that kind of text before. It’s supposed to be something like, “u up?” but he can’t bring himself to be _that_ grammatically negligent, so he’d typed “Are you still awake?” to which she had responded, “Remind me who this is?”

She’s in his phone as “Wagon Wheel Coffee Table,” so he can’t really blame her.

It helps that he’s still so fucking angry. If he ever feels it waning, he can just remember that Rey is probably being groped by four different pairs of hands right now, and she certainly isn’t worried about whatever he’s about to do. 

The woman—how is he going to tactfully find out her name?—had typed “open to whatever” in response to his queries. 

It’s more than he can say for Rey. 

Given that she’s standing at the door in ratty leggings and a Roots t-shirt— _fucking Canadians_ —and she’s not really smiling, it seems like she’s taking the “whatever” pretty literally. 

_Fine_. Doesn’t matter. This isn’t some big romance. He just needs to fuck someone else. Tonight. Right now. While he’s still in this self-destructive headspace. It’s not going to last much longer. And then he can move on with the rest of his fucking life.

“My roommates are asleep,” the woman says in a low voice, holding the door open to let him in. He stumbles over something wooden in the low light of the entryway. “Hey, careful. Those clogs are expensive.” 

_Fucking Brooklyn_. 

He finds himself following her— _fuck, what is her name?_ —through the dark apartment, toward a light shining through a two-inch gap between the bottom of a door and the parquet floor. Every little detail that he observes seems wrong and out of place. Thirty seconds in, and it couldn’t be more obvious that this is a terrible mistake. 

Even so, he finds himself taking off his coat as he steps inside her bedroom. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILER-Y CONTENT NOTE:**  
>  There’s a strong implication at the end of this chapter, that Ben is going to have dysfunctional rebound sex with someone who is not Rey. There’s also some fairly harsh lashing out from him, including a couple lines that could be considered slut shaming. There are vague-ish descriptions of drunk Rey making out with women. A brief mention that vomiting happened. And the chapter ends on a generally angsty note. 
> 
> However, things will start to heal and improve in the next chapter. So if you want to wait to read this until the next part is posted, please do. I'll do my best to be faster with this update, but sometimes life and brain stuff gets in the way.
> 
>  
> 
> **END SPOILER**
> 
>  
> 
> —
> 
> It didn't make me happy to write this relationship at its lowest point, but I hope you understand why I went there. When Harry Met Sally doesn't really shy away from showing either character in other relationships and fighting pretty viciously, complete with an actual slap. 
> 
> I consulted with people I trust AND [I even ran a poll](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder/status/1098241313089175552) (hypothetical, but relevant) to get a better sense of how this might be received. Because I'm pretty worried about it. I thought long and hard (heh, sorry) about how much to “show” in this moment. I actually wrote it both ways, in terms of showing what happens “next” and ending it here. 
> 
> I assume that if you made it this far (past Chapter 2, really), you're okay with pushing on some of the conventions of the romance genre. I hope it's also clear that Ben isn't going to have a very good time. At all.
> 
> Anyway, I’m open for questions or comments here, on [twitter](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder), [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/) (I’m a little behind on my asks there), and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/slipgoingunder) (if you'd like to be anon).
> 
> The upward climb will start in the next chapter and I promise we'll get a lot of soft fluffy, happily-ever-after stuff. Like multiple chapters of it. (I will _add_ a chapter if necessary.)
> 
> Some specifics:  
> [Flaming Saddles](http://www.flamingsaddles.com/) (on my old block!) Yee haw!
> 
> A [granny cart](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/embrace-the-granny-cart) is what some New Yorkers use for a big grocery trip. I used to take ours to Costco. 
> 
> I also updated [ my google map](https://drive.google.com/open?id=15aicyearUQ7K_Aq79HXp0QKTa2iBNILY&usp=sharing).
> 
> There are cameos in this chapter! Months ago, I ran a little contest to win a cameo as Ben or Rey's date. The winners were [ MissHarper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissHarper/pseuds/MissHarper) (an awesome Reylo writer, btw) and the [ Smut Hutt Podcast](https://twitter.com/SmutHuttPodcast) (and I _hope_ you're all familiar with the ladies of the Smut Hutt). Now, I have to admit that I got fantastic material from everyone, but I couldn't squeeze it all in. I forgot how challenging it is to use pronouns in a scene where five women are in close proximity. I only wish I could have given each Smut Hutt host some private time with Rey, so let's head canon that that's exactly what happened, but Ben just couldn't see it from that angle.
> 
> And if you’re in the mood for some fluff after that angst, and you haven’t read it yet, [Selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen) and I did a Valentine’s Day collab, Luffa At First Sight, which is silly and soft and educational.


	19. World Spins Madly On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Rey and Ben both had sad, angry, jealous feelings at Poe’s birthday party. Ben told Rey to get therapy before storming off and leaving her drunk ass on the sidewalk. He then ripped a page out of Rey’s random hookup playbook in an attempt to fuck the pain away. 
> 
> This time: Rey temporarily relocates to South Carolina for her new job and maybe— _just maybe_ —starts to deal with her feelings. 
> 
> ( _Rey’s Random Hookup Playbook_ is available for pre-order, btw.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to [BazineApologist](https://t.co/XvK1BffyL0). 
> 
> Thanks to [selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selunchen/pseuds/selunchen) for giving this a read when literally every scene ended with “[unfinished, SIGH].” I’ll be at SW Celebration giving out buttons with her beautiful art. If you aren’t attending, I’m [going to try and mail out some of the extras](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder/status/1109463700145168384), so let me know if you’d like some!
> 
> More amazing art: this one from [situation-normal](https://twitter.com/situationnorma1/status/1109595291181875201) showing Rey and Ben's convo in chapter 6! [Check out the amazing way she can portray emotion with just a few lines!](https://twitter.com/situationnorma1) I love her drawings.
> 
> If you're into Reylo x When Harry Met Sally, [KyloTrashForever wrote a one-shot based on one of the adorable older couples](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215471) in the framing device from the movie!
> 
> [100% Weepies playlist for this chapter](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ylMje2CP92B6UFOGJ5mar). 
> 
> I didn’t want to spend too many words talking about it in the text of the story (because it's already too long), but Rey is basically the second-in-command within the (at this point) fictional Stacey Abrams presidential primary campaign. *Kate crosses fingers* If you want a little more context around this, see the end notes. 
> 
> Secondly, sorry for the wait — I caught strep throat over the long weekend when I thought I was going to be peacefully finishing the entire fic (ha!). It took me a long time to recover and my overall mood and desire to write took a major hit. I watched a lot of BBC dramas, though.
> 
> I always knew this would be the hardest section to write. I've been low-key dreading it since—*checks watch*—September. As such, I had to split what I thought was going to be one chapter into two. The thing is, it’s really easy to cover ground in a freaking MONTAGE. It’s a lot harder to do that in text. And I’m trying to resolve things in a way that doesn’t feel too rushed. Believe me, no one wants me to _end this already_ more than I do.
> 
> There are quite a few references to Chapter 10 (that's the Christmas chapter) here.

**MARCH**

—

“I’ve sampled them all and the mustard-based sauce is the best.”

“I’m begging you: stop talking about barbecue. You’re just being cruel.”

“Finn, you’ve been vegetarians for, like, eight days.” Rey is finally getting accustomed to talking to people through the sound system of a rental car.

“Tell me about collard greens instead.”

“Oh God, they’re like a green, wilted pork flavor delivery mechanism. The only kind of vegetable I can get behind.”

Finn lets out something like a wail. 

Rey’s first month with the campaign is a blur of Bluetooth-enabled conference calls, lukewarm coffees that get abandoned on various countertops, and long, boring drives between Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, and occasionally, Atlanta. 

So many billboards for Jesus. So many billboards for Jesus, next to billboards for adult superstores. (It is now a personal goal of Rey's to to visit The Lion's Den before she leaves the state. For souvenirs. The billboards are, um, _eye catching_.) 

“Hey, I'm just getting to the airport. Tell Rose I said ‘Hi’ and tell Alice I said ‘Sup, yo?’ ”

“She’s in the middle of a pretty intense conversation with Doc McStuffins right now, so you’re not getting a response. What are the odds that Auntie Rey will be able to make it back for her party?”

She squeezes the steering wheel, wincing. 

“There's a fundraising deadline at the end of the month. That weekend is gonna be a non-stop clusterfuck of church picnics and people handing me screaming photo op babies.”

“Figured as much. We can always FaceTime you in.”

Rey pulls her shitty rental Jeep Compass into the pick up lane.

“I’d rather be holding _your_ screaming child, believe me. I’ll send you my present tomorrow. I tried my best to wrap it, but I might have been too ambitious. Please tell me she’s still into space exploration.”

“Still going strong,” Finn replies, his tone betraying a slight weariness. 

There’s a tapping on the back window. 

“Oh, she’s here. Well, tell your daughter to hurry up and invent teleportation within the next two weeks. Text ya later.”

Rey presses the trunk release. The weight of the car shifts as Bazine tosses her carry-on into the already-crowded back of the Jeep, slams it shut, and swings open the passenger door with a flourish. 

“If Beto launches out of Iowa, good luck Kamala Harris,” she says, collapsing onto the seat and reclining it back slightly. Her sunglasses are still on and Rey can tell that her boss has no plans to remove them. “We made the right call staying the hell out of the caucuses. All the Iowa talent was snatched up months ago. And I can’t fucking believe Oprah did us dirty like that.”

“Well why _wouldn’t_ she want to interview the ‘internet’s dreamy indie-rock boyfriend?’ ” Rey pulls back into the flow of traffic to get onto the highway. As always, Bazine is impeccably dressed in a dark dress and heels, with her thick, black hair lying flat and straight against her shoulders. “I still have my sights set on Michelle.”

Bazine laughs. “Cute.” She leans her head back. “Give me twenty-three seconds of absolute silence and then I want a status update.”

The silence is welcome. Rey’s time on the road consists primarily of chatter. With other strategists. With the candidate. With bloggers. Local politicians and civic leaders. Caterers. Printers. It's like she spends eighteen hours of her day talking, but she hasn’t had a real conversation in weeks. 

When there are no more calls to make, or her voice gives out, she puts her Audible subscription to use. If she can’t focus on a long book, there are always true crime podcasts. 

No music though. Hearing a random melancholy, tear-inducing song pop up on random—something by Suzanne Vega or Laura Veirs—while driving down a desolate rural highway where you can feel your own loneliness blowing through the car's climate control system? Hard pass. 

It’s crazy how many songs are actually about heartbreak. Even the ones that sound deceptively cheerful.

“Well?” Bazine asks, without moving. 

“When you hired me, you neglected to mention how many church services I’d be attending.”

“You haven’t been sneaking out early, have you?” She adjusts her statement necklace. “Because that’s some Bernie Sanders shit.” Bazine moves the seat back up and scrolls through her messages. "How many meetings did you set up for the State Director role?"

"Three. We need to move fast. Warren and Booker both have paid staff here now and we're all after the same people.”

“Did you already slash their tires?”

Rey squints in the sun and reaches into the console for her own pair of sunglasses. 

“It’s easier to just get them drunk.”

Bazine looks around at the food wrappers and empty cups that have accumulated in most of the Jeep's crevices, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re not expensing those bar tabs, right?”

"Nope, just using that briefcase of cash labeled 'opposition booze funds and bartender hush money,' " Rey says. 

"Just don't sleep with any of them—the opposition, I mean." She checks her lipstick in the mirror on the visor. "The bartenders are fair game. And we could save some of the hush money."

"I have no plans to sleep with anybody." Rey laughs to herself. "It's all I can do to drag my ass to my own bed at the end of the day." 

"No sexual harassment intended, by the way."

"None taken."

"After we fill this position, we need to talk about what you want to do next and where. I want our national strategy sorted. Think about whether you like being on the ground."

Rey smoothly weaves through several lanes of slow moving traffic, grateful they're not having this conversation facing each other from across a desk. Not that either of them have desks. 

The grassroots thing plays to Rey's strengths: figuring out how to get tangible shit done and then grinding it out. It's about the tiny victories—volunteers who actually show up for a canvas shift, or a well-placed phone call that nets a thousand more dollars than they had yesterday.

And if it means getting almost no sleep and living out of a duffel bag in the trunk of her car, well… She’s never been able to sleep eight hours anyway. Why not spend the extra four trying to change the fucking world instead of binging mediocre reality shows while fretting over Amilyn and sometimes texting Ben some random thought about either of those things? 

"I'll go where you need me. It's not like I have a reason to be in anywhere in particular right now. And I think I'm pretty good at the ground game. I'm comfortable with it."

"That's not what I asked." 

Rey nods. 

"I'll think about it," she agrees, noticing how _un_ comfortable it is to let herself actually want something and ask for it. 

"It's easy to get burned out. It's good to have a home base, even if you think you don't need it."

"I'm fine. I'm used to a certain degree of transience."

"You don’t want to go back to New York?"

Rey stares ahead at the road, trying to separate a geographical location from the life she's built up over eight years. The truth is, a lot of it had been there before Amilyn—or in spite of her. The furniture is gone. The apartment, the financial security, the good memories and painful ones—it had all imploded. But everything else is still standing. It's a big fucking city. There are still plenty of reasons to return. 

But not yet.

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Rey:** I wanted you to know that your pasta maker thing is at Rose and Finn’s.   
  
I didn’t know if maybe you‘d been wanting to make pasta for the last few weeks. But that’s where it is.   
  


There's no reason to look at the texts again now that he's dragged himself to Brooklyn. It's been two days and he still hasn't replied. He doesn’t plan to. But he wants his goddamn pasta machine.

He tells himself he's here because he really does want to make pasta. There's a recipe for spinach tagliatelle he's been meaning to try. 

Ben is in the middle of carefully wiping the dirty slush off his boots on the welcome mat when the door swings open. There's no one at eye height, not that he'd expect it here. His eyes lower all the way down, just a few feet above the floor, where a little girl with dark hair and a striped t-shirt with a giant stain on it looks at him quizzically. 

He's about to say something— _what do you say to a...toddler? Is this a toddler?_ —when she abruptly slams the door in his face. 

The sound of footsteps and light admonishments precedes the door opening for a second time.

"Sorry," Finn says, holding open the door and nodding for Ben to enter before crouching down to his daughter's eye level. "You're fired as our butler. Which conveniently frees you up to be an astronaut."

Alice zooms out of the entryway and into a cramped living room.

"Probably with SpaceX, at this point, if we're being realistic," Ben mutters. 

"Do I...want to know your thoughts on Elon Musk?"

"No, probably not."

"Great," Finn says, leading him through an especially narrow galley kitchen. 

"I would have picked it up sooner, I didn't realize you had it. I thought maybe—"

"Nah, don't worry about it." Finn scratches his head and half-heartedly gestures toward their small, round dining table. "We're just reorganizing Rey's stuff, to try and fit it in one box instead of two. Storage space is tight around here."

And there it sits, mingling with the things she left behind. 

By his calculation, their "romance" had lasted approximately nineteen hours—just a painfully long one-night stand. And yet, a piece of fucking kitchen equipment had come to symbolize all his misguided belief that it was something more.

The pasta machine is clean, which it hadn't been the last time he'd seen it. He'd planned to do the dishes after...whatever he'd expected to happen that night. So maybe Rey had cleaned it—probably not according to the manufacturer's recommendations. But still, at some point, she must have sighed and decided to just wash it and store it rather than toss it out with the rest of her trash.

"Did you at least make use of it?" Ben asks, as Finn hands him a Uniqlo shopping bag, apparently for the pasta machine. So he'll be walking to the train like a fucking tourist who just stocked up on the cheapest possible cashmere. But it seems rude to refuse, so he lowers it to the flat bottom of the bag.

"The only pasta we make in this apartment is extruded Play-Doh," Finn points out. "I wish we had the time. We were trying to do Forks over Knives, but now we're down to Meatless Mondays. Pasta's probably the one thing that could have gotten us through..."

Ben listens, sort of, as Finn continues explaining something about their failed fad diet. He's too distracted by the modest pile of belongings on the table that fit into some category in between _things she doesn’t need everyday_ and _things she can’t quite bear to throw out._ Little souvenirs, books, SWAG from old campaigns.

All Rey's stuff, crammed into a single box small enough to be shoved in a tiny hall closet? She could have left fifty boxes at the loft. He's almost tempted to offer to take the box with him, but he doesn't really want to face a container of Rey's few prized possessions on a daily basis. Not to mention that his therapist would immediately jump all over that as backsliding. 

He feels Finn watching him as he unsubtly takes a visual inventory. 

"I guess these are the things that sparked joy, or whatever," Finn continues. "She's pretty much living out of suitcases, so she couldn't really bring keepsakes."

Ben's not sure if he wants or expects to see any tokens of their relationship (he refuses to call it a "friendship") among the stuff she left behind. 

It's also the stuff she intends to come back for. 

Either way, he doesn't see the iPod. 

Something catches his eye on the floor beside the table. Another cardboard box filled with clothes. Some toddler-looking things, with animals or other creatures on them—probably some intellectual property for children with which he wouldn't be familiar. But peeking out is a Soundgarden logo.

He can't help grabbing at it. 

"This is all to...keep?" Ben asks, holding up the shirt.

"Nope," Finn says, lightly kicking at the box. "That's the donate box. We just cleaned out Alice's dresser and Rey didn't have time to take her shit to Goodwill before she left. Rose is actually planning to take some of the shirts to Buffalo Exchange. Apparently the nineties are a 'thing' again. I guess Holdo’s old gym shirt is another person's 'statement piece.' According to my wife."

So Rey moved without any "pajamas." 

It doesn’t really mean anything. She should really get some of her own t-shirts to sleep in. Maybe that's exactly what she'd done. 

_She could also be sleeping naked._

Wiping that thought away almost as quickly as it appears, he hears himself sigh. Loudly. 

Finn raises his eyebrows. "If you're a big Soundgarden fan, you can just take that one, man. Not that it would fit you." 

Ben drops the shirt and shakes his head. Thoughts like that—flashes of memories that sometimes blend together with unfulfilled fantasies—ambush him at inopportune times. He'd thought that kind of thing would have dissipated by now—that Rey would take up less space in his brain. And, in a way, she has; he's not agonizing over her, waiting for a call, or deciphering each text like it's comprised of Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

It helps that there haven't been any calls or texts to pore over. Just the one about the pasta maker.

Instead, she's taken root in some deep, inaccessible place that can't be edited or overwritten—just _managed_. Like a chronic illness. His therapist suggests these visualization exercises where he pictures a physical manifestation of a Rey Thought floating down a stream, just watching it drift past. Acknowledging it and letting it go. 

That's what’s supposed to happen. In reality, the best he can do is swat it away like a persistent wasp. 

"Have you called her?" Finn asks in a tone that's clearly meant to be casual, but sounds loaded to Ben's ears. "Or texted?"

“Have _I_ …?” Ben shakes his head. "I think we made a clean break."

Ben looks down at the table, preparing himself for some kind of lecture. Not that he needs to hear it from Finn. He's been over it a thousand times from every angle, until the issue of who had been right and wrong stops mattering. It's all compressed into a familiar, heavy weight now, casually permeating his daily existence. 

Finn doesn't respond, but conspicuously occupies himself with emptying a box containing a small collection of clumsily wrapped little packages in different colors, two of which are the size and approximate shape of picture books. 

"Is that for…?" Ben nods his head toward the living room, where Finn’s daughter is leaping off the couch cushions, onto the floor, landing with a loud thump every time. 

"Rey sent them for her birthday." The space books. _Right_. "She won’t make it back for the party. She works non-stop, you know."

He really doesn't want to think about Rey getting any amount of sleep. There's a very specific memory of her sleeping and it's just so much easier if he doesn't call it up to the forefront of his mind. 

Still. Maybe it's because of just how atrocious the wrapping job is. Maybe he has some lingering sense of obligation to a woman who curb stomped his heart two months ago. Maybe it's just because he still misses her presence in his life so fucking much. For whatever reason, Ben finds himself opening his mouth and offering to wrap the presents according to Rey’s convoluted solar system idea. 

Also, his therapist would definitely prompt him to rephrase the curb stomping rhetoric. It's an “emotional experience attached to a series of events.” That doesn't mean it's the objective reality of what happened. Or some fucking shit like that. _Fuck_. 

With an expression of surprise—and obvious relief at not having to make the gift look presentable—Finn loads the packages into the Uniqlo bag.

"We have some wrapping paper if you—" 

"No," Ben says firmly. "I have a—a wrapping paper place." Finn nods, like this is a normal thing for a man to say to another man. "I’ll get it back to you before—"

"Saturday after next.” He walks Ben back over to the door. “Actually, you could...stop by. Poe will be there. He’d probably appreciate the presence of another adult who’s not familiar with _Paw Patrol_.” Alice suddenly dashes into the foyer and Finn scoops her up, whirling her around. “And Hux isn’t invited.”

It’s probably been about thirty years since Ben has attended a young child’s birthday party. He watches Finn hold Alice upside-down by the legs, as she squeals. Something about it reminds him of Han, during those times when he would actually try to be a dad. 

“I’ll check my calendar.” Not that he’s had much of anything in his “calendar.” But etiquette dictates that he should pretend like there’s the slight possibility he’d actually show up. 

"Hey," Finn says, as Ben grabs the door handle. "She doesn't talk about the shi—the stuff that's actually important to her."

“Who?” Ben asks, knowing full well who he’s referring to. 

Finn doesn’t even dignify it with a response. He sets Alice down gently on her feet. 

"I'm not sure the break was that clean." 

Letting that sink in, Ben turns the handle and pushes open the door. But he can't quite stop himself from—

"Did she tell you something?" he asks, desperate, as always, for the littlest crumbs of actual communication from Rey.

Finn shakes his head. "That's how I know she's really hurt."

Ben turns back to the door. _She's hurt._ She's _hurt?_

He's not sure if he says a polite goodbye as he exits the apartment, shopping bag in hand. There's probably some mindfulness bullshit exercise he should be practicing rather than letting “ _she’s hurt”_ cycle through his mind on an endless loop. 

It’s what he’d said he wanted, after all. Does it make him feel better to know that she's in pain? Like it's a thing they have common again?

It always happens this way: just when he thinks his feelings are tipping over from depression into acceptance, something like this happens and reshuffles the whole fucking deck. 

And yet, he knows, as soon as he gets back to the loft, he'll start investigating how to order custom wrapping paper.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey stuffs another grease-saturated pizza box in the trash bag as the last of the volunteers leave. The door swings open and shut, the blast of cold air reminding her that she’d foolishly ridden her bike from the Airbnb this morning. 

_My kingdom for heated seats_ , she thinks, bemoaning the windy, hilly 2.3 mile ride back to her crash pad.

Shrugging on her jacket, she checks her messages, just as a loud rumble sounds from out on the street in right in front of the office. An engine cuts out. 

She grabs the garbage for the dumpster and pushes the door open, juggling her keys. It's the car she notices first, before the person getting out of it: a 1988 C4 Corvette. All white commemorative edition. Or, at least, formerly all-white.

She drops the overstuffed trash bag on the sidewalk. 

"Hey, kid."

They haven't really hugged before—or, at least, Rey can’t remember them hugging—but it feels so good to see an actual friend, that she can't help but throw her arms around him. 

Han reciprocates in an awkward Han way. 

"You're some kind of big deal now, taking out the trash?"

"Sometimes I even clean the bathrooms. Turns out you can't ask volunteers to do the glamorous tasks. What are you doing here?"

"Spring Expo in Pigeon Forge."

"Are you lost? That's four hours away." He shrugs. "Wanna grab something to eat?”

He glances down at the trash bag, straining from the corners of pizza boxes.

"Pizza has really stopped counting as 'food' to me," she explains, picking up the bag again and hauling it to the side of the building where the dumpster sits.

"I need to get to Tennessee before midnight. But I’m assuming you’re an expert at fast food around here?"

"If you give me a ride home after, I’ll take you to Zesto. I swear you can smell the decades of oil in the air."

\--

Rey wipes her fried chicken grease-coated fingers on a napkin before running her hand over the passenger side dash, revealing a fine layer of dust. 

"The light interior was really a bold choice for you,” she observes, eyeing the steering wheel, which is several shades darker than the white leather it must have been in ‘88. “Doing the detailing yourself, I take it?"

"The best person for the job moved a thousand miles away."

"Well, the pay sucked."

"An open tab at Maz's ‘sucked?’ "

"I guess I'm finally at the point where being paid in booze seems more like a liability than a benefit."

She flips on the sound system and a cassette whirs to life, with a disconcerting crunching sound. 

“For fuck’s sake, Han, REO Speedwagon?” She turns down the volume. 

Over dinner, they'd already bitched about the Pats winning another stupid Super Bowl, discussed Rey’s disappointing rental Jeep, and compared the merits of Michelin versus Goodyear runflats. 

So now that they’re only two minutes from Rey’s basement rental unit, it’s obviously the perfect time to broach the subject that's been hanging over her head for the last hour.

"How did you know I was here?" Rey asks, staring straight ahead. 

"Lando." He slows in front of a red light. "You could've stopped by the bar before you left."

"I did. You weren't there." She turns her head and looks out the passenger window. It’s drizzling a bit. “And I wasn’t sure what to expect if you had been.” 

They both watch the red light. It’s a long one. 

“It was an argument,” Han says, tapping lightly on the steering wheel. “I didn’t think you were going to move to another state over it.”

“I didn’t leave because of you.”

“Did you leave because of Ben?”

She turns and stares at him, unsure if it's an accusation or an honest question. The light turns green. He takes an extra second to push down on the accelerator.

“No,” she says indignantly. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but I’m doing something really important here.” She sips from her melting banana milkshake so as not to betray any particular emotion. The conversation feels like a walk over a tightrope, with each new step requiring a mental recalculation. “Turn left at the next light.”

“I talked to Leia.”

And just like that, Rey full-body cringes and loses her balance. 

So _that's_ the real purpose of this surprise visit.

She wants to dig for the context, for any scrap of information, but that's just not a thing they do. So she watches the raindrops get mercilessly batted away by the noisy windshield wipers as Ric Ocasek croons in the background. 

She waits. 

He doesn't elaborate. 

"I didn’t lie to you," she insists, even though he never accused her of anything. "Whatever you heard from Leia? It happened...later.”

“Don’t give me a timeline." He moves his hands off the wheel in a gesture of surrender. "This is already the most goddamn awkward thing I’ve had to talk about in years.”

"We made a mistake. And we can't talk to each other anymore. So that's it." Rey jams the straw in her mouth again, looking down.

"That's it, huh?"

"This is my place on the right up here," she says, pointing to a house that looks identical to its neighbors. 

"Are you coming back?"

" _You_ haven't talked to him in eight years and you're gonna preach to me about—"

"I didn't come here because of Ben," he says, slowing to a stop outside the rental. “I wanted to—“

“Well, your son’s a dumbass sometimes,” she says, recognizing the tone of a sullen teenager in her own voice. 

“Who do you think he gets it from?”

Rey rolls her eyes. The cognitive dissonance of Ben being Han's _son_ hurts her brain if she thinks about it too much. She tries to take a last sip of the milkshake, but the cup is empty.

They sit, listening, but not really listening to The Cars, each staring straight ahead as the rain starts to fall a little harder on the windshield. 

"We really hurt each other," she says softly. "I don't know how to undo that." 

Han's hand squeezes the gear shift.

"I don't know what to tell you. You've always been good at fixing things. Me? I just ignore the fact that they're broken." 

"White male privilege," Rey says under her breath.

The track cuts off awkwardly and splices into the middle of the Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes," the upbeat tone hanging incongruously in the melancholy of the Corvette. 

"A good mix tape is worth a hundred apologies. I would've been divorced a lot sooner if I wasn't for Don Henley."

Rey makes a face while she digs in her Stacey Abrams tote bag for her keys. 

“For some reason I don't think Ben would appreciate a curated playlist of Def Leppard ballads right now.”

"Hey, I never claimed to know the first thing about what Ben would appreciate." He sighs. "I should get back on the road. It's getting late."

Rey nods, opening the door and sliding carefully out of the low seat. 

"Thanks for dinner," she says, slightly irritated at the way the visit is ending on a thorny subject. A failure. 

"Anytime, kid."

She shuts the door and taps on the roof of the car before stepping back to let him pull away from the curb. The rain falls gently, wetting her hair and her jacket.

She hears the gears shift, but the car doesn't move. Instead, the automatic window on the passenger side descends slowly, almost struggling to come down. 

"Rey!" She leans down slightly to see into the car, tilting her head. "I know that I'm not technically anything to you except some cranky asshole you put up with for some reason." 

She swallows hard, mentally bracing herself for a final "I told you so." 

" 'But?' "

"When I said I didn't come here to talk about Ben, I meant it. You just left so damn fast that..." He fiddles with something on the dashboard for a second before looking up again. "I'm proud of you." 

Rey can't help the way her eyes narrow, like it's her instinct to automatically doubt those particular four words. 

She stares at him, waiting for him to break into sarcasm.

Someone must have said this to her before—maybe Amilyn, when she graduated from law school, or won her first campaign—but she can't remember any specific instance. She doesn't permit herself many emotions in front of Han, but something cracks and a couple fat tears slide steadily down her cheeks.

"Well, don't get all mushy on me."

"I'm not," she says, with a sniffle. "It's the rain."

He nods back, waits a beat, and she swears that maybe his eyes are a little bit misty, too. But in another instant, he gives a little salute and pulls away from the curb.

Rey stands on the sidewalk, watching the tail lights fade completely into the evening fog. 

 

 

* * *

  **APRIL  
**

Rose  
  
**Rey:** I'm at a meet-and-greet  
  
Moar barbecue  
  
**Rose:** Get that $$$$  
  
**Rey:** Lemme know when I should sneak out   
  
**Rose:** kids are at the "clay bar"  
  
Shoot me now  
  
Facetime in 10 mins?  
  
She's cranky, but we'll try  
  
**Rey:** That's barely enough time for me to wipe the sauce off my face and apply my clown makeup  
  
**Rose:** don't you dare. There's enough screaming as is.   
  
Also, Ben is here.  
  
So maybe don't do that.  
  


Rey instinctually excuses herself from the small group conversation to which she's been half-paying attention.

**Rey:**???  
  
**Rose:** He dropped off your presents  
  
**Rey:** my presents?  
  
Why did he have them  
  
**Rose:** I thought Finn told you  
  
He gift wrapped them  
  
**Rey:** Um, I WRAPPED THEM.  
  
I sent them to you already wrapped!!  
  
**Rose:** He walked in with something that looked like a profesh scale model of a solar system  
  
We didn't tell him that A barely knows the names of the planets  
  
**Rey:**...  
  


A rush of something—confusion, maybe adrenaline—courses up through her chest. 

**Rose:** He's been talking to Poe for like 10 mins idk  
  
Should I kick him out?  
  
Should I kick his ass? 😈  
  
**Rey:** no  
  
it's ok  
  
**Rose:** Paige getting here soon with new bf   
  
And the cake.  
  
So I assume he'll clear out before she shows up.   
  
**Rey:** 👀  
  
**Rose:** Shit gtg   
  
Someone's eating clay  
  
Prolly my kid   
  
8 mins, k?   
  


 

It's not that Rey had put _zero_ effort into her appearance today. She tries to look presentable at official campaign events. But she finds herself scurrying into to their host's tiny guest bathroom to check her hair and makeup. 

After eight more minutes of donor and influencer small talk, Rey walks to the quieter front yard of the house where the barbecue is taking place, hoping the WiFi signal holds. 

She sits on the stoop, phone held aloft at what she hopes is a flattering angle as she accepts the Facetime call. 

"Hey!" Rose has a smudge of clay on her face. "So, she's really immersed in this clay bar, but let me see if she'll say 'hi.' "

As Rose walks with her iPad, Rey can see flashes of the party: the bright colors of the children's art museum, small sticky hands, parents with phones at the ready. The camera suddenly goes still in front of Alice. 

"Look who it is!" Rose exclaims, crouching down into the frame as a little clay-encrusted hand reaches in the direction of the camera. "No, no, don't touch! It's Rey! Can you say 'hi?' She's wearing her Stacey Abrams shirt, look." The camera tilts down to reveal paint-splattered campaign SWAG. 

It's a sweet gesture, but Alice seems uncharacteristically agitated. _It's fine._ Facetime is fucking weird, no matter how old you are.

"You're too cool for me, Alice. And I _respect_ that," Rey says, forging ahead despite the obviously superior allure of the clay bar. "Do you wanna sing 'Baby Shark' with me?"

There are a few painful seconds of awkward silence. She tries not to take it personally, but apparently it _is_ possible to get your feelings hurt by a newly-minted five-year-old. 

"Rey, you don't have to," Rose, interjects, grabbing the iPad again. "I think she's a couple minutes from a tantrum, and I just _can't_ ," she whispers. "Hang on, let me give you to Finn."

The iPad gets muted and jostled again. When the camera stabilizes, Rey sees what appears to be Finn's jacket along the edge of the frame. In the background, Poe chats with Paige— _Paige!—_ looking beautiful (obviously) in a camel-colored coat. It's a bold move for a children's art museum. 

The iPad moves slightly to the left and there's another figure in the conversation—towering over Poe—and turned away from the camera. Like Paige, he's still wearing an expensive coat, as if he's not planning to stay.

It's a back Rey would recognize anywhere. 

Poe seems to catch a glimpse of her on the screen and all she can do is watch as he gestures excitedly toward the iPad and Paige and Ben turn around toward it. The lack of sound is agonizing.

Rey feels her breath catch.

Paige waves—warmly. Rey lifts her hand up and smiles back, as if her brain is not actually diving down a rabbit hole of things Paige and Ben could be saying to each other. She’s always been good at smiling through inner turmoil.

Ben...does not wave. He just looks into the screen at whatever expression is playing out over Rey's face. They stare at each other as Poe and Paige continue chatting. It's like a silent film with no piano accompaniment. 

It's been so long since she's actually _seen_ him. He looks pensive now, rather than furious or upset. The camera is still focused on Finn's jacket, so Ben is slightly— _frustratingly_ —blurry in the background. But somehow he can just see right through her. Like the months and the distance and the anger haven't changed a thing about how they _look_ at each other. Any second, Finn will move the iPad; but as long as he's distracted by whatever is happening just off-camera, they might as well be alone in the same room.

It looks as if Ben starts to take a step toward the iPad, and, against all logic, Rey finds herself moving her own head closer to the screen. 

The simple act of seeing him again—like, living and breathing and actually existing in the world—makes her heart pound. 

And suddenly the iPad moves wildly again and the screen is dominated by Finn's face. He doesn't realize he's still on mute and his mouth is moving before the whole thing suddenly disconnects. 

She exhales and looks at the Facetime home screen. 

Finnnnn  
  
**Finn:** Sorry wifi cut out   
  
call you later? will take pics!   
  


 

Finn and Rose send her a whole album a few hours later while Rey takes a break from schmoozing with donors at a meat-and-three in Greenville. She scrolls through the images as she cleans her plate, stopping to admire the solar system sculpture which, apparently, had contained her presents. Her eyes move over the photos, searching. There are multiple shots of Paige with a man who must be her new boyfriend. He looks like one of the Chrises. 

Ben is in the background of just one of photos in the album. It's almost like Finn or Rose combed through them to filter him out and missed one. 

She hesitates for just a moment, before downloading it. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**MAY  
**

“He's a non-grievance candidate in a grievance year, Bill." Bazine reclines the passenger seat a few more inches, settling back onto the headrest. "I don't care what you heard at South By. It's not going to happen." 

"Your funding will atrophy if you don't get these poll numbers up," the male voice over the Bluetooth speaker phone insists. "Out of money? Out of gas. I shouldn't have to tell you this. Voters only support winners. That's the bottom line."

Bazine takes her sunglasses off, which Rey recognizes as the equivalent of "hold my beer." 

"The spending is just an amplifier," Rey pipes up, nodding at her boss. "If the message doesn't resonate, spending on its own doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Ask Jeb Bush how all that cash worked out for him four years ago. We've raised an amount we're happy with. And we're scrappy. The money goes further for us. We just had a really inspiring meeting with Lil Jon. We'll send you the stats on our free media impressions."

"Just get me the polling data asap."

"Sure will," Bazine says with fake enthusiasm, before ending the call with a hard tap on the phone screen. "God these fucking assholes. How _is_ the polling data?"

"We're close to the threshold for the debates," Rey says, checking her blindspot, before merging onto I-20. "Really close." 

Bazine sips her iced mocha without leaving a trace of lipstick on the straw.

"Have you talked to Poe Dameron recently?"

"Poe? Uh, we text here and there," Rey replies, feeling some momentary guilt over their lack of real conversation.

"Think he'd be interested in taking on the comms role? We're gonna need new speeches soon, debate prep…"

She imagines working the campaign trail with Poe again. It usually starts with solid strategy sessions and devolves into arguments over who gets to drive the rental car or who gets to flirt with the cute bartender. 

"I don't think he's signed on with anyone yet. I know he has that podcast, but I'm not sure if—"

"Have you heard it?"

"I've been meaning to. I just get weary of hearing men talk at me all day."

"Try being married." Rey doesn't mention that she _has_ , in fact, tried that. Bazine scrolls through her phone. "Apparently it has 'Pod Save America vibes.' " 

"Right. Male podcasting bros. They're the real heroes." 

"He has this anonymous co-host who debates him." _Hux?_ "It's a gimmick, but it works. They did a segment about Sanders and South Carolina yesterday. Listen to it and let me know if we should have Stacey sit down with them. Or we could just make him an offer."

Rey sighs. The last thing she wants to do tonight is listen to Poe verbally spar with his insufferable fuckbuddy over Bernie Sanders. 

“And that anonymous guy?” Bazine adds, scrolling through her phone, “He has a _really_ nice voice.”

Rey furrows her brow, certain that _no one_ , Poe included, has ever said that about Armitage Hux. A creeping suspicion winds around her brain like a vine.

”Is it, like...a deep, resonant kind of thing?” It could be anyone. Who doesn’t have a podcast at this point? But somehow, Rey just _knows_ exactly who it has to be.

”Real ASMR vibes. You’ll thank me later.”

There’s an embarrassing swell of anticipation in her belly. It’s pathetic, but she’s been so desperate for... _new content_ that the promise of something—even his terrible political opinions, has her checking GPS for the time remaining to destination.

 

* * *

 

 

On a good day, Rey usually crawls into bed around 2 am, spending a little time catching up on non-critical emails, letting her brain wind down slowly, until she can't keep her eyes open anymore. Sometimes sleep comes easily. 

Sometimes it doesn't come at all. But it's not because someone's been keeping her awake in the double bed that's shoved up against one of the walls of the basement studio apartment.

There haven't been any alcohol-fueled hookups with staffers from rival campaigns.  
There haven’t been any bartenders.  
There hasn't been anyone.

She's always had trouble sleeping; tiredness has never had anything to do with it. The problem isn't the nights; it's the mornings. 

Ironically, it's because of _hope_ —the childish notion that when she'd wake up, maybe things would be better. As a kid, she'd let herself believe, for far too long, that her parents might magically reappear, like the whole thing was some huge misunderstanding—the rational part of her brain all the while knowing she'd inevitably be let down. 

The sleeplessness had returned with a vengeance after Amilyn left. Rey would go to bed with that same misplaced longing: that maybe— _maybe_ —her wife would be back in the morning, begging for forgiveness. Usually she would just wake up to another rage-inducing email from her lawyer. 

That had been how the voicemail habit had started: it had been her drug of choice to turn the mornings into anything other than another disappointment. 

But the voicemail doesn't work anymore. Rey has played it half a dozen times in the past few weeks...and nothing. 

It could be overexposure. Desensitization. After all, she practically has the cadence of every ridiculous phrase memorized. She could almost play it back in her head like a favorite song. 

Or it could be because hearing Ben's voice makes her feel more heartsick than turned on. 

She hasn't texted him again. Nor has she received a text. She _has_ looked at the picture from the party a few times. 

You can't be ignored by a photo. 

—- 

Rey puts on Poe’s podcast as soon as Bazine exits the Jeep in the drop off area outside her hotel. She listens to an entire episode in the parking lot and two more while lying in her bed. She expects it to be some kind of balm—hearing his voice say new and different words for the first time in months. But the continual intrusion of Poe's commentary prevents her from slipping into any kind of reverie. She's not soothed; her skin itches. 

Which is probably why she walks over to her suitcase and unzips one of the exterior pockets (she knows exactly which one). She pulls out a neatly wrapped box—the kind that holds a pair of earrings. 

Lifting the lid, she picks up the iPod Shuffle and the little charging cable—helpfully included in the box, because of course Ben wouldn't forget that—and plugs it into the massive USB charging brick that keeps all her devices running. 

Maybe it's a way to test the overexposure theory; at least, that's what she tells herself.

She selects one of her purple— _always fucking purple_ —vibrators and plugs that in, too, letting it charge next to the iPod for as long as she can distract herself with her phone. 

With the lights off and the digital clock silently judging her for being awake at 2:37 a.m., she retrieves both devices and pulls out the ancient pair of wired earbuds that she keeps in case of a Bluetooth emergency.

 _So what if it's a moment of desperation?_

It's odd—she hasn't even felt like doing this in weeks, even though it's happened a few times, out of habit, or in the name of stress relief. This feels like something else, though—an actual _need_.

She lies back on her bed, shimmying her underwear down her legs, turning on the toy, feeling somehow guilty about the whole thing, but not enough to stop. Not nearly enough. 

Hitting play, she breathes out, preparing herself for a dramatic reading of _Space Raptor Butt Invasion_ or _Bigfoot Pirates Haunt My Balls_. 

There's a second or two of silence, a soft sound—maybe a brushing against a microphone—and then a breath in. 

"When I was a little kid, Leia traveled for work all the time. She always missed tucking me in and reading me a story, or whatever parents are supposed to do." It's not _that_ voice, but it's _his_ voice, clear as a bell, like he's lying next to her, recounting this in person. "So she used to record these cassettes—you know, dictate children's books into a little microphone? And I'd listen to them with this Walkman. Fuck, do you even know what that is? Google it. Anyway, that's how I'd fall asleep."

Rey sits up a bit, increasing the volume, trying to make sense of the unexpected monologue. 

"You said you haven't been sleeping. Maybe this will help. I'm grabbing novels from my bookshelf at random. I'm going to flip to the last pages and read them aloud." There's another pause and some indecipherable background noise. "I know how much that bothers you, but I really think the mark of a good story is the ending. Not the beginning. So, spoiler alert. Or whatever."

Rey furrows her brow. _What_ is _this?_

"Anyway, this is _Never Let Me Go_. Kazuo Ishiguro. Have you read it? The movie's decent, especially the cinematography. We could watch it if it's streaming. Actually we should have a running list of movies so we don't have to go through the whole 'what do you want to watch' thing all the time, but anyway." Pause. The quality of his voice deepens as he starts reading. " 'I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shoreline of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up…" 

_This is most certainly_ not _Chuck Tingle_ , Rey thinks, as she listens to him read actual, non-Tingler prose aloud. 

" '...The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn't let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.' ”

There's another rustling on the recording and the sound of a clearing throat. She lets the vibrator drop from her hand onto the bed.

"This is 'Wild Geese.’ It’s, uh, a poem." He breathes in. Rey finds herself taking a deep breath, too. " 'You do not have to be good. You do not have walk on your knees for hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.' " 

There's an unmistakable constriction in her throat and Rey presses PAUSE, leaving only the sound of the WeVibe Touch buzzing insistently in the background. 

She breathes in and out again, waiting for her pulse to stop racing, and hits PLAY. 

" 'Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your place in the family of things.' "

Rey blinks rapidly, staving off tears. 

"It's from a book of Mary Oliver poems. Except—well, it wasn't on the last page. I was just flipping through the book and that one reminded me of you."

She presses PAUSE again and sits up. She pulls her underwear back on and hugs her knees to her chest, covering her mouth with her hand—like that might stop the surge of emotion that feels like it's threatening to burst out of her chest. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees movement—the vibrator, buzzing slowly over the quilt, to the edge of the bed. There's ample time to reach out and grab it, but for some reason, she just watches, wide-eyed, as it buzzes itself off the mattress. 

"Apparently I'm not the most depressed person in this relationship," she says aloud, to no one. 

It's so absurd, it's actually funny. 

She finds herself giggling—and letting it turn into actual laughter. At the vibrator with a deathwish, sure, but also at her own eagerness for some simple masturbatory material being thwarted by...fucking poetry. 

It's still buzzing when she reaches down to the floor to retrieve it. After briefly considering whether the five-second rule applies to vibrators, she turns it off and tosses it into the drawer in the bedside table.

She rolls onto her side and hugs a pillow to her chest, hitting PLAY.

There’s no weird dinosaur-on-human bullshit to filter out. She doesn’t have to invent some generic fantasy man that just happens to possess Ben’s voice. And basic shape and face and hair and demeanor. 

Despite the non-erotic nature of the written text, hearing his reading voice is still a bit exhilarating; she can feel goosebumps prickling on her forearms. But she finds herself rewinding the parts where he's just talking, as if they’re partaking in an asynchronous conversation and she simply hasn’t answered yet.

She’s been building up a barricade around this particular door for so long, she can’t quite figure out how to pry off the boards and step over the caution tape. 

So she closes her eyes and tries again, imagining them holding each other, warm under the covers—actually, they're soft, Italian-made, Egyptian cotton sheets, and Ben would care about the distinction.

She's just on the precipice of sleep. His lips are about an inch away from her left ear and he could be saying anything.

Maybe Ben isn’t reading something ridiculous on his phone to cut the tension, so there’s nothing to laugh at this time. Maybe he weaves his fingers through her hair and runs his hand gently down her back, while she lifts her thigh over his hip, pulling their bodies closer together. Maybe she’s nuzzling her nose into the firm, pale skin of his chest, breathing in the sandalwood/camphor/Russian leather scent of his stupid body wash. Maybe she wants to smell like those nonsense words, too.

Rey can't remember ever wanting to smell like someone else before. 

Is that a weird thing to fantasize about while Ben reads her the last page of _Crime and Punishment_? 

It's too late to take back any of the messy, complicated shit that happened between them. But maybe it could be untangled, strand by strand—like a tightly knotted ball of holiday lights. 

Complicated. Slow. Possibly futile.

There’s a good chance it’s nothing more than childish hope. 

Still, Rey has always been good at fixing things. And waiting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks SO much for reading/commenting/asking questions. I realize there are some loose threads here and we’ll back up a little bit with more Ben POV in the next chapter. I'm sorry if this feels super long and like nothing happened? I've been writing this chapter and the next simultaneously, so I know what I need to build up to and I have a lot of work to do to close out the story.
> 
> Here is some info on the [state of the Democratic primary in South Carolina](https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/so-you-re-running-for-president-in-now-what-a/article_89d046ac-2962-11e9-ba67-ab0de060edeb.html). As of now, Stacey Abrams hasn’t announced. If you don’t already know, she ran for governor of Georgia (the state where I currently live) and “lost” to an insane white man due to extremely questionable election practices. She’s also...a _romance novelist_. Can you imagine? This is woman we need in high office. I did a fair amount of research on which candidates already have a presence in South Carolina (a critical early primary state), but of course, take it all with a grain of salt. Most of my political jargon comes from _The West Wing_. 
> 
> If you're wondering why Rey is stuck doing some menial tasks, it's because she's pretty much the only paid staff person working to get the campaign set up. Essentially, she's there to hire a local person to be in charge, going forward. She's betting on a long shot candidate, so it's a risk/reward situation.
> 
>  
> 
> [What is a "meat and three?" ](https://discoversouthcarolina.com/articles/just-what-is-a-meat-and-three)
> 
>  
> 
> [The Spring Expo](https://www.corvetteexpo.com/) is a Corvette event/con basically. I had to do a lot of research on the Corvette community for a work project and I firmly believe Han falls in the Vette demo. 
> 
> What music would Han be listening to? [ A fun thread](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder/status/1105967742031671296)
> 
> What songs were playing on Han's shitty mixtape? (I don't have much faith in Han's musical taste.)  
> ["What a Fool Believes"](https://open.spotify.com/track/2yBVeksU2EtrPJbTu4ZslK)  
> ["Drive"](https://open.spotify.com/track/3wfujdbamR3Z46F4xav7LM)  
> ["Is This Love?"](https://open.spotify.com/track/0IhUdJRoolbYeEMPL59XPm)  
> ["Second Chance"](https://open.spotify.com/track/0RAn8LOs5QVMLy2xH30bUj)  
> ["Take It On the Run" ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5gys5nzVQIYhgHIfiOJYva)


	20. Don't Dream It's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Rey and Ben adjusted to being physically and emotionally and text-ually and sexually separated from each other. Rey experienced some personal and professional growth before finally listening to the ipod I planted back in Chapter 10. 
> 
> This time: According to everyone who reads this fic, Rey needs therapy. I hear you. Let’s get Rey some therapy. (But let’s also keep in mind that therapy isn’t a magic bullet that solves everything.) Also, let’s let our babies interact again…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For people who are waiting out angst: there is at least one angsty conversation in this chapter, but the ending is very much on an up note and it won’t get romantically angsty again. 
> 
> More art! @bazineapologist created this [ pasta making scene ](https://twitter.com/bazineapologist/status/1115059198797025280) from chapter 17! I love!
> 
> And there’s a [new mood board](https://twitter.com/bettertoflee/status/1119730505669316608) today from [@bettertoflee!](https://twitter.com/bettertoflee/) Btw - I really like her current WIP. 
> 
> Amy Wishman Nalan wrote a canonverse [ one shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256898) based on the “good melon” story in When Harry Met Sally!
> 
> DtU was discussed on the [Smut Hutt.](https://twitter.com/drkldykay/status/1120517724847923201) @drkldykay did an amazing job of breaking down the story and characters and basically performing an audio drama version of I’ll Have What She’s Having. She's a regular Ben Solo when it comes to audio porn.
> 
> And (as usual) a quick apology for taking so long to update. I’d hoped to finish this before Celebration, but it didn’t happen and I fell behind by a couple weeks. (I’m still sending out buttons, so please see [ this tweet ](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder/status/1118998414228955136)if you would like some!) 
> 
> Also, the TROS teaser prevented me from writing anything modern AU for while. But then, I was lucky enough to spend a couple days back in NYC for work and I saw Burn This, so a little bit of the DtU spirit came back because the whole thing takes place in a loft that looks A LOT like the one the loft in this fic is based on, except with better windows.
> 
> Thanks to [@selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256935) and [@delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991454) for helping to give this mess some shape. I'm linking to their WIPs, which are two of my favorite things to read.

"Well, I'll give you this: it's a step above a duvet draped over a garment rack." Dameron steps gingerly around the microphones in the center of the room, eyeing Ben's handiwork on the dark foam-covered walls. "I guess soundproofing stuff doesn't come in off-white." 

"Acoustic foam, bass traps, and diffusers," Ben clarifies. "It's about the correct combination of absorption and diffusion."

"So, basically it'll sound better?"

"Yes." Ben barely disguises an eye roll. “And we can record anytime.”

"It's a little murdery. Have you seen _You_?" 

"We can rent out the studio if we have a guest," Ben points out. “It’s more professional, anyway.”

"And it's hot as hell in here—"

"There's no air conditioning in this building, so that’s one less thing to make noise. And it forces us to do shorter episodes. Easier to edit." Not that he doesn't have the time to edit. It's the principle.

"Or we could record with our shirts off," Dameron says, raising his eyebrows. "Now _that's_ a hook we haven't explored yet. Especially since we still can't show your face.” Ben fails to stifle yet another eye roll, not that Dameron ever seems to notice. “Anyway, I guess it'll feel just about perfect in December." 

"We won't still be doing this in December."

"Why wouldn't we? We have that piece in _New York_ coming out on Wednesday. We have momentum, the primaries, my face plus the, uh, Phantom of the Opera element you bring to the table. This thing isn't going anywhere."

Ben knows it isn't true. Dameron is perpetually on the verge of joining "Mayor Pete." (The folksy moniker, alone, is like nails on a chalkboard.) Even if it weren't a conflict of interest, he’ll be unable to record, because he'll probably be stuck in a series of hotel rooms in some God-forsaken early primary state, just like—

Well, it's the most likely scenario. 

Thinking through it logically like that, it’s fucking stupid to have spent so many hours constructing a makeshift studio for something with a rapidly approaching expiration date. He could have put his effort into finally tearing _down_ the structurally questionable walls that Han had built to escape his family responsibilities. But it had felt—well, not exactly _good_ , but _productive_ to create something instead of destroy it. 

And if, sometimes, he'd imagined—not fantasized about, _imagined_ —Rey helping him with the task, it's only because it's the type of thing at which she naturally excels. It’s not because he _needs_ her. It doesn’t even matter that several hundred dollars worth of Command Strips had been his best solution to adhering the foam to the walls. It's still something he'd figured out and completed by himself.

A small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.

Dameron leaves twenty minutes later, muttering something about a happy hour networking event— _a cringe-inducing phrase, if there ever was one_ —and the loft is plunged into silence again. Ben wanders over to the stereo and puts on a Bill Evans album. Sometimes melancholy music has the inverse effect of making him feel _less_ lonely. It's almost like a dare. _Can you take this plaintive piano melody? Yes? Well, then how about this Miles Davis ballad, bitch?_

He picks up his phone and refreshes his email app, even though he has push notifications on, and it's highly unlikely that his fucking embarrassing query to the philosophy department head at Columbia will get answered a mere two and a half hours after he'd composed it. 

Still, the fact that he'd actually sent it is a tangible thing he can tell his new therapist. He's never been afraid of a mental health professional before, but something in Dr. Phasma’s stern manner strikes just the right amount of unease into his heart. He even begrudgingly completes "therapy homework” for the first time in his life. She holds him accountable for making lists and crossing off tasks. He’s not spending all of his time feeling a combination of bitter and heartbroken and angry and sorry for himself. 

He still does that. But maybe just 5/16ths of the time. 

There's no message, obviously. Except from Leia. There's always a fucking message from Leia. 

Leia  
  
**Leia:** Did you get the invite for Friday? Kaydel said you didn't respond.   
  
**Ben:** My response is "no."   
  
**Leia:** There's someone I want you to meet.   
  
**Ben:** I don't want to meet anyone right now.  
  
**Today** 7:58 PM  
**Leia:** Have you heard from Rey?  
  
**Ben:** Why, do you have another job lined up for her?  
  
Is there some election in Argentina she can help with?  
  


There's no response. This, too, feels like a small victory. 

 

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Kaydel:** Confirming Friday.   
  
This is the perfect time for a setup. You have one positive talking point.   
  
I peeped her tiktok and determined that she's like 5'10.  
  
I know a lot of people have that size kink thing where the woman is tiny and the man is LORGE, but I think two people who are roughly the same height are VERY aesthetically pleasing.  
  
I'll send her a recent pic to set expectations.  
  
Would love to talk photo filters with you.  
  
We need a strategy this time.  
  
  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

At 3:00 pm on Wednesday, Rey sits in a small waiting room on a firm, beige couch, distracting herself with a November, 2018 issue of _People_. Apparently, at that time, Joanna Gaines had wanted to share her absolute _joy_ over having five kids ( _five!_ ) with the world. And, hey, there’s some photographic evidence of Meghan Markle’s fledgling “pregnancy style.”

What kind of therapist keeps triggering shit like this on a coffee table?

A burly middle-aged man enters the waiting room, followed by a woman who, pointedly, does not sit right next to him. They both occupy themselves with their phones. Rey tries hard not to stare at them, but it’s like looking at other passengers on a subway car. You’re all doing it, somehow, but the moment you make mutual eye contact, it’s incredibly awkward. 

They all glance up as a tearful girl— _a college student?_ —emerges from one of the offices, followed by a dark haired woman who appears to be around Rey's age. The girl sniffles and murmurs something like “thank you” as she makes for the exit, lowering her head.

_So this is therapy._

Maybe that’s what you get when you find a therapist by searching the psychologytoday.com database for someone in a one-mile radius of your current location, who accepts your insurance—and use no other criteria. For some reason it'd seemed so much easier to call a stranger referred to her by a website full of paid listings than any friend-of-a-friend Amilyn had ever recommended. 

“Rey?” the woman asks, turning toward the waiting room. “I'm Jessika Pava. Come on back to my office and have a seat.” 

Anything to get away from the tension between the couple in the waiting room. Sometimes people really should just get divorced. 

“I share this office with another therapist,” she explains, as if she notices Rey running a diagnostic on the decor. “Take a seat. You can call me Jessika, by the way. I think any kind of ‘doctor’ title creates an uncomfortable hierarchy.”

"My mission in life is to tear down hierarchies." 

It makes the therapist smile. _Good_. One point scored.

“Is this your first experience with talk therapy?”

“Yes?" She hears the question mark in her own voice. "I talked to a counselor at some point when I was a teenager. I think it was mandated by the state or something, so it doesn’t really count. So. Yeah. This is my big debut.”

There's an uncomfortable silence and it feels like maybe that first point gets taken away. The tight feeling in Rey's gut tells her it's probably the first of many uncomfortable silences. Jessika tilts her head slightly and looks at her, not scrutinizing, just waiting to see if more words are forthcoming. 

They aren't. 

Rey has made it a habit never to reveal more than what's absolutely necessary in these situations. 

“Sometimes making the appointment is the most difficult part of all of this,” Jessika adds, as she pulls out a spiral notebook. “Is it okay if I take notes?” 

Rey nods, even though it’s unnerving, not knowing what's being written on the lined paper. She'd pictured an older woman, when she'd imagined this—someone with at least seventeen years of experience cracking open an expensive blank book and asking pertinent questions about how her marriage fell apart. Someone more _authoritative_. 

“Can you tell me a little about your life right now, in the present moment?" 

" ‘The present moment?’ I—don't you want to hear about my, uh, divorce?"

"I do—when you feel comfortable. I like to meet my clients where they are now."

Rey fidgets in her seat. She really doesn’t feel like she’s anywhere right now; she’d had to look up her temporary address on her phone to fill out the paperwork ten minutes ago. 

Jessika asks questions about her work. The move. Her friendships. Hobbies. Diet and exercise. It's like an intake questionnaire for which she has concise, satisfactory answers that don’t require follow ups... until she asks about her "intimate relationships." It seems to be a polite way of bringing up her sex life. 

Rey describes herself as "bisexual, with no time to date either gender." _The only sexual relationship I'm in requires a pair of earbuds._

"Do you think you get enough rest?" 

“Does anyone?” _I haven't slept through the night in, like, twenty-five years._

"Is that something you're hoping to address with therapy?” Jessika makes it sound like it's actually possible to just _do that_ : just tell someone your problems and somehow get more sleep. 

"I—sure, I guess. But mostly I'm hoping to get over the divorce." 

"What does that mean for you? To ‘get over’ it?"

“I just don’t want to feel this way anymore." _How should I know? This wasn’t even my idea!_

“Can you tell me a little more about the emotions you feel when you think about your ex-wife?"

It’s been so long since she’s actually thought about Amilyn—like, the _actual_ person. She doesn’t even seem real anymore. 

“It’s not that I want her back,” she says, the volume of her voice increasing. “I don’t even think I miss her. I just hate that I allowed someone to do that to me. Again.” 

“Can you say more about that?”

Rey feels her cheeks getting warm. All Jessika’s questions are like this. “What is this bringing up for you?” "What’s happening in your body right now?” “Do you want to come back to that next time?” 

It’s not unkind, it’s just...intrusive. And kind of exhausting. She does a pretty good job with defensive conversational maneuvers, but twenty minutes in, she’s reasonably certain it’ll be both her first and last experience with therapy. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben scours the bins at Academy Records, making a conscious effort to tune out the insufferable manbun lecturing his normcore companion about the "auditory refuse" in Brian Eno’s _Ambient 4_. He's about 1.75 seconds away from breaking an Ahmad Jamal album over Manbun's head when his pocket vibrates once. 

He exhales some of the hostility before retrieving his phone. 

Rey  
  
**Rey:** I saw a therapist   
  


He stares at the phone, rereading the name until the letters no longer look familiar. It's only four words, but somehow there's so much to unpack. He puts his records down in order to hold the phone with both hands. It seems necessary. 

**Rey:** I mean, I'm going to therapy. Not dating a therapist. Just to be clear.  
  


It would probably feel good to continue to ignore these messages. Leave her hanging. Let her be the one to check her phone too often. 

But when has he ever let himself feel good? No, better answer right away. _Like the fucking fool you've always been._

**Ben:** Okay.  
  


At least it's a curt response. 

**Ben:** I'm glad.  
  


**__** _Fuck. Stop._

The answer comes immediately.

**Rey:** I'm pretty sure I suck at it.  
  
I didn't know it was possible to suck at answering questions about myself.  
  


She's definitely holding her phone right now with no distractions. Waiting for him to validate her.

Which he definitely shouldn't do. 

**Ben:** You don't suck.  
  
At therapy.  
  


He kicks one of the crates on the floor.

**Ben:** The first session is always fucking awkward.  
  
Keep going.  
  
**Rey:** Maybe  
  
I probably should.  
  


Ben hangs around the store for awhile, pretending to leaf through the bins a bit more, waiting for the phone to buzz again. There has to be more to the conversation, but he can’t be the one to change the subject. It has to be her.

He paces around the jazz section as if it's been mystically enabling a real-time connection between them and stepping over the perimeter into prog rock might sever it completely.

 _Fucking hopeless idiot._

When it becomes apparent that another message isn't coming, he buys the records and walks home. It's a real fucking shame that he might never listen to them because they'll be forever tainted as they albums he bought during his last conversation with Rey.

 

* * *

 

**Rey:** I’m not sure it’s working.   
  
I thought some switch would get flipped.  
  
I think I feel worse when I leave the office.   
  
**Ben:** How long have you been seeing someone?  
  
A therapist, I mean.  
  
**Rey:** 2.5 weeks  
  
**Today** 4:23 PM  
**Ben:** It’s not like taking an antibiotic. It’s a process.   
  
**Rey:** That's what she said.  
  
Shit. Not like that. The therapist calls it that  
  
**Ben:** Most of the work doesn't happen in the office.  
  
It's like any other fucking thing. You have to do it yourself.  
  
"Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness."  
  
**Rey:** did you just quote ayn rand at me?  
  
**Ben:** She wasn't wrong about everything.  
  
**Rey:** 👀  
  
**Today** 4:47 PM  
I talked about my parents today.   
  
I don't know why she asked me about that when we’ve barely even talked about my marriage.   
  
**Ben:** Somewhere around 80 percent of therapy is discovering how your parents installed your software incorrectly.  
  
**Rey:** I keep thinking that she expects me to cry.   
  
And it’s like...I almost want to? Just to make her think something’s working.   
  
I’m people-pleasing my therapist. Like, I don’t want HER to feel bad.   
  
**Ben:** Crying isn’t the only valid emotional response to trauma.  
  
But what the fuck do I know?  
  
**Today** 5:03 PM  
**Rey:** You know a lot about therapy.   
  
**Ben:** Quite an accomplishment.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey balances her laptop on her thighs as she makes edits to a list of debate talking points. Just the act of being _in_ bed at 7:30 pm counts as “rest,” right? The air conditioner is set to a barely-tolerable 80 degrees. 

It's about as hot in the basement studio as it had been in her Queens apartment with the aggressive winter radiator, when the only relief had been to strip off every layer of clothing and stand directly under the ceiling fan.

She moves the computer to the side. Maybe just a short break. 

It happens like clockwork: she retrieves the iPod, which now has a home on the nightstand, puts in the earbuds, and presses the fast forward part of the button a bunch of times to randomize the first selection. It feels less rote that way. There is, in fact, the occasional Tingler on there—something she'd discovered a few nights into the new ritual. It's not that she's actively seeking those performances, but she doesn't exactly fast forward through them, either. 

It's hard to tell if this routine makes her miss Ben less or more. It's a comfort while she's listening, but as soon as she presses STOP, it feels wrong. Like she's trying to live in a game of _Sims_ and pretend it's reality. 

She can’t go on like this forever: not knowing whether he’s excited to get her texts or begrudgingly responding because he's honorbound to reply to someone asking questions about therapy.

The idea has been marinating for a few days. She's thought a lot about sending something... _provocative_. The kind of picture she knows he’s always wanted. It sends a clear message. Or, at least it always has in the past. 

His response should tell her if there's still something there. And if there isn't? Then she can move on.

She pulls the boxy campaign shirt over her head, feeling the slight sheen of sweat getting wicked off her back with the cotton blend material. Despite the heat, her nipples start to pebble in the slight breeze of the fan. It's the first time in months that she's felt like she wants to share any part of herself with someone else

Isn't that an act of vulnerability? Even if it's shared in pixels?

Holding out her phone at an angle she understands to be the most flattering, Rey kneels on her bed and takes a few experimental shots, adjusting a bit each time, capturing slightly different poses. Scrolling through the results, she notices something right away. 

Cotton briefs. 

Yeah, her underwear game has suffered in the, um, drought. 

She eyes her overflowing laundry bag. There's one pair she’s been holding in reserve for a long time, just waiting for the right moment. 

Yeah, it's extra. But then, so is Ben. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben is two hours into the mise en place for Thomas Keller's Braised Beef recipe when he hears his phone buzz. He'd started the veal stock four days ago, and the short ribs two days later, as prescribed. He'd strained the braising liquid— _twice_ —through a fine strainer, spooned off the fat and strained it a third time over the short ribs. The remainder of the recipe is "just" four separate garnishes, but the whole thing requires precise timing of both the oven and saute pans.

Finn and Rose are due to arrive in an hour to mark the inevitable end of their vegan-turned-vegetarian-turned-meatless-Mondays diet. It's pretty apparent that the gathering is more about the prospect of a lavish and _free_ dinner while Alice spends the night with Rose's parents, than Ben's actual company, but it's refreshing to cook for someone other than himself, for once. 

Ben makes dinner most nights, now. It's kind of a relief—choosing his own ingredients, preparing meals precisely to taste without have to rattle off a litany of instructions. Every recipe makes too much, though. He tries not to think about how there wouldn't be any leftovers with Rey at the table. So that shit is still fucking happening in his mind. 

He puts down the button mushroom he's trimming, wipes his hands on a dish towel, and reaches for his phone, fully expecting an apology from Rose about running late or canceling. 

Ben only catches the briefest glimpse of the preview image as he put his thumb to the screen, but it's enough send his phone crashing to the wooden floor. 

Because it's a woman's back. _Her_ back. She's kneeling, muscles straining a bit to maintain the twisted position necessary to capture the photo. She's topless, the curve of her right breast just visible and her face in profile, partially obscured by a lock of hair falling next to her eye. 

There's a small triangle of impossibly sheer black fabric stretched over her ass. It might as well not be there at all. 

The slab bacon he'd carefully cut into lardons sizzles and pops in the frying pan, but he can't hear or smell it.

_What the fuck does it mean?_

He uses his thumb and index finger to zoom in on the details. The picture has to be new. Her hair is a bit shorter, not quite reaching her shoulders. It's closer to the length it had been when he saw her staring at him on Finn's iPad. He zooms in on a few other areas of the image, too. 

_Fuck_. 

_It has to be a mistake._ Something she meant to send to someone else. Someone whose name also starts with a _B_. _Brittany, maybe. Or Brianna._

Ignoring the the lardons that are just starting to tip over from crisp to burnt, he walks straight into the bedroom, undoing the engraved button on his black A.P.C. jeans with the hand that's not death-gripping the phone. 

It feels wrong to look at this photo in front of the Braised Beef. And another image could appear any fucking second and he can't pause to think about why he’s instinctively unbuttoning his jeans. 

Soon enough, the device vibrates in his left hand and it feels like he's touching a livewire. 

Except it's only text this time. 

**Rey:** I don't think I ever properly thanked you.  
  


_Thanked you_? This is a _thank you_? 

He clumsily types with his left thumb:

 

**Ben:** For?  
  


He feels a surge of adrenaline, considering the possibilities. _Thank you for loving me_? _Thank you for wanting me, despite everything I put you through_?

The ellipsis appears and disappears. He's not sure whether he wants another image or more text.

Because this could be _it_. _The_ apology. For all of it. The big admission, where she finally reveals everything. 

He watches the ellipsis, wondering whether he should still have his right hand positioned over his fly. Have they transitioned into a conversation? Is it inappropriate to finish himself off to her picture while she's typing a confession of love?

**Rey:** The christmas gift  
  


He stills his hand, not moving a muscle. This is literally about a pair of fucking underwear? Like she's bored and entertaining herself? By pushing him and pushing him and then pulling away when it becomes too real? The same fucking pattern, but in a new medium?

Like Lucy with the fucking football. 

Still, he gives her the benefit of the doubt. His thumb hovers over the too-small keyboard on the phone, waiting for her to elaborate. To clarify. 

Not that she's _ever_ clarified anything to him. 

He allows himself to wait three more seconds before typing again.

**Ben:** I told you I'd replace them.  
  


He breathes in and holds it.

**Rey:** I'm not talking about that.  
  
I mean the other gift.  
  
The ipod  
  


_The iPod?_ The ellipsis reappears. How is this coming up now?

**Rey:** It took me a long time to listen to it. Too long. I know that.   
  


She...she hadn't even fucking _heard_ it? 

**Rey:** It’s probably the best present anyone ever gave me.  
  
I take that back, obviously the underwear is number one.   
  
But the ipod is a close second.   
  


Before he can process any of it, the ear-piercing scream of the fire alarm shatters the quiet of the loft, knocking him out of whatever trance had allowed him not to smell the burning bacon on the stove. 

Cursing under his breath, he drops the phone onto the bed, before rushing back into the kitchen to put his ruined lardons out of their misery.

**Rey:** Are you there?  
  
That was a joke. Before.   
  
I mean about the underwear being the best present, not the photo.  
  
Ok then.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey  
  
**Monday** 1:03 AM  
**Rey:** Tell Poe to stop cutting you off when you start on some philosophical tangent. Those are the best parts of the episodes.  
  
**Wednesday** 11:29 PM  
I will fight you on Zizek.   
  
**Friday** 12:03 AM  
Martha Nussbaum 🙌 Did you work w/ her at UChicago?  
  


 

It’s so tempting. Getting back into that routine with her. The specificity of her comments almost baiting him. They could argue a little over unimportant bullshit. Maybe it would turn into flirting. He’d feel that lightness again for a few minutes, thinking about her tapping away at her phone and smiling. 

Thinking of him. 

While leaving him hanging, stuck on the same loop.

Phasma asks him if it’s self-destructive. 

It makes him regret telling her about the texts. She does that therapist thing where she gets _him_ to admit that he shouldn't respond. It’s like inception or something.

_What do you get out of these interactions? How is it serving you?_

He’s had so much time to think about that: how it’s possible to be so fucking elated to be around someone even while they cause you pain. 

Maybe that’s why Leia and Han had stayed together through some seriously fucked up shit.

Maybe, for some people, love and misery aren’t all that different.

Or maybe that’s just a Skywalker trait.

It helps to think about how angry he’d been. How long it’s taken to get back to any kind of baseline. It helps but it doesn’t make it easier to hit _delete_ each time. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"If you could wave a magic wand, what positive changes would you make to your life?"

"Positive changes?" It's their fourth session and, still, Rey is on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop—the deep dive into anguish. "Uh…" It's like the very concept is foreign.

"Let's start another way. Can you tell me about something that brings you joy? Something that makes you feel a little bit better? It could be a hobby, a person, a ritual." The therapist raises her eyebrows and there's the hint of a kind smile on her face again. 

Rey hates the thought of letting this woman down, so she rifles through her catalogue of inoffensive, easy-to-talk-about memories for something benign. 

"I go to yoga?" Again, she answers it like a question—like a nervous student with her hand up in class. "I don't think I understand the meditation part, but it feels good to lay there at the end and I like feeling sore the next day."

Jessika nods. "What else?" _More?_

"My niece? I mean, she's not literally my niece, but she's four—actually, five, I guess—and she's too little to understand divorce. I hope. She never asks how I'm doing, so I never have to answer that question with her."

More silence. 

Rey rolls it over and over in her mind. There's an obvious answer there, but she hasn't mentioned it yet in their sessions. She inhales audibly and huffs it out. 

"I have a—a friend. Maybe not a friend. It's complicated." She expects the therapist to sit up a little straighter and ask _Complicated? How?_

But she doesn’t.

"What does this person make you feel?"

Rey feels her nose and mouth scrunching up involuntarily. _Don't cry. Don't fucking cry at_ this. People vanish from each other's lives all the time. 

"We—I think we understand each other. Or we did. We're not talking anymore, but...We're very different, you know?"

"What does he make you _feel_?" she repeats.

 _This woman and her fucking feeling words._

"I guess..." She looks up at the ceiling and along the walls, wracking her brain for an appropriate answer that won't encourage more emotions-based questioning. "I think I felt seen." _Where did that come from?_ "Maybe that's not a feeling."

"You don't feel seen by other people?" 

“Not like that.” Rey furrows her brow slightly. "I just…" Jessika tilts her head again, patiently waiting for more words. "I didn’t get tired of seeing him. Having random conversations for hours about nothing. Even when we didn't agree, it was like, I still had his respect. We had this...connection. It meant—it meant a lot to me." 

Rey allows some memories to seep through the protective barrier that seems to arise in these sessions. Now that the pain isn’t so fresh, she almost welcomes the swooping feeling in her stomach, thinking about _that_ day in the loft. How scary, but also how _right_ it had seemed, giving themselves over to one another. 

"And you said you're no longer speaking?"

Jessika raises her eyebrows a tiny bit and she suddenly wonders if the heat in her cheeks means she's blushing. 

But any time she lets that barrier down, other memories start to intrude. Hearing herself say, “I love you,” and feeling ashamed and embarrassed, rather than elated. The look on Ben’s face when she’d slipped out of the room. His unwillingness to just _listen_ to her perfectly logical reasons for leaving New York without getting angry.

“What’s happening for you right now, Rey? It seems like you got pretty emotional, talking about your friend.”

 

\--

 

Rey wrenches open the car door and tosses her tote bag on the passenger seat. It's pathetic to text him again. She knows it. Any sane and compassionate friend would take away her phone. 

But every time she steps out of the nondescript brick building and into the late afternoon light, she feels vulnerable—open in a way that she can usually tamp down on. It's like it takes a good thirty minutes to start really _talking_ in therapy. By the time the session ends, there's still so much more that needs to come out. 

She should _probably_ be journaling instead of pulling her phone out of the bag and opening her contacts. She should _probably_ be tapping on Finn's name, instead of—

It rings. 

Four times. 

The voicemail message isn't personalized. She should _probably_ have practiced something succinct to say after the beep, but—

"Hey. It's me. Uh, Rey. Yeah, so I guess you didn't pick up the phone because maybe you still don't want to talk to me. But if you hear this and you don't delete this message, I just— I didn't mean to freak you out. I’m not sure if it was what I said about the iPod or the photo or…It’s just really hard because it seemed like we were becoming friends again and then—" 

_No, no, no. Abort. It’s a fucking disaster._

She hits the red button to end the call, realizing a second too late that she'd missed the chance to actually delete the message. 

With a sigh, she starts up the Jeep, letting the mercifully cool breeze of the air conditioning wash over her flushed cheeks. The voice of a local FM DJ blares over the speakers—one of those "80s, 90s, and Today!" stations that only plays "feel good hits." 

Resting her head against the top of the steering wheel, she lets her mind swim with fears and regrets and outlandish hopes and stupid therapy feelings, until the Bluetooth system announces an "incoming call from...Ben So-lo" in that stitled, robotic tone. 

She turns her head to the right and taps the green button. 

“Ben?” It's so awkward to just talk to him through the speakers of her parked car, like she's shouting at a ghost. 

“Did you need something?” His voice isn't particularly friendly. Or unfriendly. It's...cautious. 

“I didn’t think you’d actually pick up or call me back, or whatever,” she says, trying to mask some of the strain in her voice. “Don't worry, I'm not going to ambush you with anything inappropriate—”

“I thought might be an emergency. I was just heading out.”

 _Out. To meet someone?_ Why would Ben ever be “heading out?” A helpless feeling pulls at her stomach. 

“Oh. Where are you going?"

"Can you just tell me why you're calling? I'm running late." 

"Oh. If you're busy, maybe we could—I dunno, could we talk later? There’s so much I just...I'm coming back to the city at the end of the month for the Pride Parade and I thought...maybe we could see each other? We could have lunch.” 

“You want to have _lunch_?”

“I want to tell you about what I've been doing here and I've been listening to your podcast and—”

“We're not friends, Rey.”

“—I don’t have anyone to really talk to here," she continues, pushing through his interjection. "Except the therapist. I’m still going. I guess I told you that already.”

“Yeah," he says, his tone returning to something more neutral. "I’m glad you’re doing that.”

“Okay, I get that you don't want to, like, _talk_ , but I just need you to know that—" her voice starts to break “—you meant the world to me.”

There's some breathing on the other end before he responds.

"I don’t want to hear about how you used to feel. Because you’re a thousand miles away and I’m still here and I’ve _been_ here this whole time, waiting for you to just—" His voice sounds choked. "I’m not going to wait anymore."

"Ben—"

"I fucked things up, too. I know that. I pushed and I—" 

"I wasn't ready."

There's a police siren whining in the background and they both seem to wait for it to recede into the distance. 

"I can't blame you for not being ready. It's taken four fucking months and two different therapists, but I get that now. You told me and I didn't want to hear it. But the way you behaved—it's like you knew that I—how I felt. The whole time. You knew and you were just pretending like it wasn't real."

“But I'm trying now. I was trying to tell you that you're, like, the only person who—"

"I gave you that iPod almost six months ago, Rey. _Six months_."

"All I want is to talk to you again. _Please_." She hears the desperation growing in her voice and instinctively closes her mouth before it can get worse. 

"That's all you want?"

She can't bring herself to answer. It’s like he’s already decided something. 

“You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. And I guess I’m where...I am." She hears him breathe. "I think—I think I still love you." There's a pause long enough to make her hope that the next word is _and_. "But I'm not going to slip back into some inane conversation with you like we're buddies. My friendship isn't a consolation prize."

She wants to answer. She wants to argue. She wants to insist that, in her entire life, she's never wanted a consolation prize. But the lump in her throat feels like it's pressing on her windpipe and he sounds so resigned. She covers her mouth with her hand to muffle the sobbing as he keeps talking. 

“You warned me, you know. You said we'd hurt each other. And I was so concerned with making _you_ feel safe—I just didn't occur to me that…" He sniffles. Maybe. "You were right." 

There's some other sound in the background, an intake of breath and then:

“I need to hang up now.”

The line goes dead before she can say anything. 

Rey stares at the home screen on her phone, mouth open, as the sound system flips back to the radio. Fittingly, it's a commercial for a personal injury attorney. 

She's still in that liminal space, where her brain hasn't quite processed the conversation. For a few seconds, it's like it hadn't actually happened. It feels like it might still be possible to rewind five minutes and try it again. 

Only she's not sure how it could have gone differently. They'd have take it back so much further to make any kind of difference. The call had just been an admission of failure, not the failure, itself.

It only takes a few more seconds for her brain to turn a corner into emotional torture porn, though.

 _This is the last time we'll ever speak. This is the last time we'll ever speak._ Yeah. That feels good and painful. The panic setting in. Thinking it over and over again. Letting the thought stab at her brain like a needle into the skin. Like getting a really painful tattoo over scar tissue.

 _There's_ nothing _you can do about it_. _He's not coming back. Everyone leaves. Everyone always leaves._

She's about thirty seconds deep into spiraling when a few familiar notes, heavy with reverb, ring out through the car speakers. Neil Finn launches into the first verse and it's clearly a cruel cosmic joke that the "feel good hits" station would program "Don't Dream It's Over" at this precise moment. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"She's only here for one more day, Poe," Finn shouts over “Freedom 90.” "You can shut up about Mayor Pete. She _knows_."

It's hot but cloudy—a good combination for a storm. But they haven't felt any drops yet and there's a nice view of the parade route from the rooftop bar overlooking Madison Square Park. Rose had thought it would be easier than pushing a stroller through the teeming crowds lining Fifth Avenue. It's definitely easier, but Rey misses being in the thick of it. It's the first year she hasn't either volunteered or marched. It's also the first Pride March where she's been appropriately dressed for a brunch with a five-year-old. 

"I'm supposed to be offering you a job," Rey points out. "Maybe stop waxing poetic about the opposition?" 

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I turned down that job two weeks ago over the phone." Poe gulps his drink. "You just want to experience the Femme Fatale party as a single woman."

"I don't care what the reason is, I'll take whatever Rey time I can get," Rose insists, taking another long sip of mimosa before refilling her glass.

Rey forces a smile. It's good to see them. It is. The devastated feeling had cooled, somewhat, in the week since the phone call. It's still hard to concentrate, though. Hard to think about other things. Hard to be in this city, knowing they're occupying the same land mass. At least when she's staying with Finn and Rose, there's no chance of running into him in Brooklyn.

Rey watches the tender way that Finn rubs the back of Rose's neck, while keeping an eye on Alice, who's preoccupied with one of their phones. How is it possible to be so genuinely happy for your dearest friends, while feeling a familiar pang of envy over the easy way they seem to embrace being the embodiment of hashtag blessed?

Well, that's not exactly true. Rey had stayed up plenty of nights with a crying Rose when Finn was still busy being an oblivious butthead. And they'd had more than their share of struggles with parenthood and their own family dramas and finances. 

Still. To have a partner like that...To give and receive everything in equal measure...make a home. Grow and change together. 

All that bullshit that people put in their made up wedding vows. She'd written the same type of crap at her ceremony, so clearly it doesn't count for that much. 

"Any chance I could poach you for Mayor Pete?" Poe asks, before chomping down on an olive from the garnish of his bloody mary. Rey blinks, refocusing on the conversation.

"Actually, you're doing me a favor," she tells him, voice raised over the thumping music rising up from the street. "I'm thinking of suggesting myself for the comms job."

He raises his eyebrows. 

"Oh, so _that's_ why you got that nose ring?" he says with a laugh. "How edgy."

“Well, at least no one’s going to mistake me for Joe Biden’s spokesperson.”

"I think it's badass," Rose insists. She's sounding a little sloppier than she was ten minutes ago. "It says, 'This is a different kind of campaign and I'm not some corporate crisis management asshole.' " 

"Maybe you should get a matching one for Mayor Pete," Rey suggests. "We could be twinning at the next debate."

"Maybe I should get a Prince Albert for Mayor Pete."

"Hey, not in front of my kid," Finn interjects, digging out a pair of over-ear headphones from Rose’s giant bag. "I know this is New York, but I don't want her learning what a Prince Albert is until she's at least seven."

Poe downs the remainder of his drink. 

"I gotta run."

"You're not watching the parade with us?" Rey asks, pushing her empty plate away from the edge of the table. 

"Nah, I'm meeting Hux down on Eighth at the bottom of the route."

"Didn't you tell me you weren't seeing each other anymore?" Rey asks, scrutinizing Poe's face.

"I'm a big believer in second chances." He grins. "And hate sex. Sometimes there are third and fourth chances. On a good night."

"What a beautiful love story."

"Yeah, I know you'd be into it if one of us were a velociraptor—"

"Fuck. Off." 

"—but you can't please everyone. Anyway, he's riding on a float with Don Lemon and I'm already running late and I don't want to hear it from Ben."

"Ben's going?" she hears herself ask, barely noticing Finn shoot a glance in Rose's direction. Rose only seems to have eyes for her drink. 

"Honestly, I think Hux just invited him so that we can run back to his place and use the bathroom after the parade ends. That's one of the advantages of dating a craven opportunist." He hesitates for a second before adding, "Why? Did you want to come along?"

"Me?" Rey asks, looking around, like maybe he was addressing someone else at the table.

"Yeah. You have a funny look on your face. Does that mean you _want_ to see Ben, or you _don't_ want to see Ben?"

"Well, considering he doesn't want to talk to me ever again, I think I'll pass."

"Sure he doesn't," Poe responds with a laugh. 

"What?"

"Did you miss my vaguetweet? I opted out of the gay-best-friend advice giver role months ago. I leave it to drunk Rose to slap the obvious into you."

"The obvious?"

"I'm headed downtown—don’t even say it. Text me when you change your mind in a couple drinks."

Rey watches him turn and head for the elevator, her thoughts churning. _Obvious?_

Finn clears his throat loudly, jolting her out of her thousand-yard stare. 

"You okay?"

She nods. Because that's what you do when someone asks if you're okay. You nod to reassure them and you both move on. 

"That's cu-ute," Rose slurs, looking over Rey's shoulder. There's a couple curled up together on a sofa in the far corner of the bar. "I bet they started dating, like, two weeks ago and one of them slept over for the first time last night. That's the good shit."

"I thought _we_ were in the good shit phase?" Finn says. 

"That's what we tell ourselves when our daughter wakes up screaming at four in the morning." Rose turns to Rey. "The actual good shit is when things are still sexy and unknown and a little awkward—but in a cute way—and you're not quite sure if the other person will go savory or sweet at brunch the next morning."

She points—actually _points_ —at the couple, not that that they notice. It's impressive that they're so into each other that they can ignore the pounding bass of the music, the screaming of the crowd on the street, _and_ Rose's mimosa-fueled exuberance from across the rooftop. 

Rey allows herself to watch them. 

There's something intimate in it—losing yourself in the way someone else gazes deeply into your eyes. Like you're the only thing in the world worth that kind of focus. It just doesn't happen that often. If you're lucky, you meet that person once. Maybe.

What does it mean if the universe throws you together three times and you still manage to fuck it up? In the history of phrases, no one has ever said “fourth time’s a charm.”

Rose is still daydreaming, at a high volume, on her behalf. 

"I want Rey to meet someone who’ll hold her hand and take her on dates and buy her both sweet and savory breakfast dishes, Finn!" 

"You're my wife and I love you, but you're being very loudly heteronormative at a gay pride event."

"I never specified a gender!" 

Rey hears her friends gently bicker in the background, but she's still watching the PDA couple.

It's almost a relief—to have ruined things so thoroughly that she doesn't need to worry about doing any further damage. That's _true_ freedom. This is fine. 

So then why is it still prickling in the back of her mind? 

That she already met someone— _three times_ —who wanted to hold her hand and take her on dates and who’s willing to buy her obscene quantities of breakfast foods with a minimal amount of grumbling. 

"What was Poe talking about?" Rey asks suddenly, moving her eyes between Finn and Rose.

"When?" asks Rose. 

"Before he left." 

"Ugh, something about banging Hux probably. Do you ever think about who's the top and who's the bottom in that relationship?"

Rey turns to the far-more-sober Finn. "What was he saying about Ben?"

Finn glances back at Rose, who responds with some kind of _go ahead_ gesture before taking another long sip. 

"I think he was implying," he says, hesitating slightly, "that Ben is still in love with you."

She sits back in her chair, furrowing her brow.

"But he's _not_. The last time we talked, he—he said that I hurt him and that he didn't even want to be my friend. And then he hung up on me."

"So tell him you don't want to be his ‘friend,’ either," Rose suggests, with a little shrug, like it's the easiest thing in the world. 

"I sexted him. What more do I have to do?" 

"Jesus Christ, Rey,” Finn says, sitting forward in his chair. “Just use your words and _tell him_ how you feel.”

“How I feel? I feel sick.”

“Okay, then start small. Maybe just admit it to yourself. You’re in love with him."

The house music from the parade seems to get louder when no one says anything for what feels like an eternity. Rose loudly sips her drink until it’s empty. 

Rey finds herself nodding at Finn. This time, she's not nodding because she's okay. She's definitely not okay. But maybe— _maybe_ —the tiniest bit of weight lifts off her shoulders for the first time in months. It doesn’t matter anymore. If losing him had been her worst fear—well, it had already happened. 

"Then why don't you stop torturing yourself and say that to him?"

"It’s too late. We were just so upset at each other. And the thing is, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay in a long time and I’ve been pushing it down and I haven’t felt like myself in so long. But for some reason when I'm—"

“Rey, that’s the speech you give to Ben, not us.”

“We been knew,” Rose adds, pouring the rest of the carafe into her glass. “For _awhile_.” 

”We’ve been trying to be ‘quietly supportive,’ without actually shaking you by the shoulders."

“You have? God, I'm stupid." Rey gets to her feet, shoving the chair back. "I'm so fucking stupid. I need to go find him. Right now.”

“The streets are closed,” Rose says, gesturing over the ledge of the rooftop. “You’ll never get a cab.”

“Can you hold onto my bag?” Rey asks, removing her phone from her tote bag and shoving it into her bra. Because why would women’s shorts have pockets? 

“You don’t need your stuff?” 

“I’m gonna run. It'll just get in the way.”

"Oh. My. _God_ , Finn. An airport run." Rose shouts, as Rey tightens the laces on her sneakers. "She’s doing an airport run! This is just like a movie!"

"It’s, like, twenty blocks, Rey,” Finn points out, handing Rose a glass of water. “And it’s gonna pour any second.” 

“Yeah, it might." She looks up at the ominously gray sky. "But I can’t wait anymore.” She forces the whole family into a clumsy group hug. “I love you.”

“See!” Rose exclaims. “You’re already saying it!”

“I’ll Venmo you for brunch.”

“Just go!”

Rey gives them one last hopeful glance before running to the elevator, heart already pounding. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ NYC Pride March](https://2019-worldpride-stonewall50.nycpride.org/events/nyc-pride-march/). The geography is pretty simple: they're at a rooftop bar in the high 20s and the parade route is down Fifth until it turns at 8th St. Well, we'll get into it in the next chapter. But 20 blocks is about a mile. 
> 
>  
> 
> [Mayor Pete ](https://peteforamerica.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> [Bill Evans](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Piece)
> 
>  
> 
> I really wish Ben could’ve visited [Other Music, but sadly, it’s gone.](https://www.othermusic.com/) Can we all acknowledge how few record stores are left in Manhattan? And we know Ben won’t go to Brooklyn. 
> 
> I’m picky about therapy scenes. And I acknowledge that I didn’t write them very realistically here, but I had to prioritize moving the plot forward. 
> 
> I don’t know if the chapter count is accurate. There could possibly be one more chapter added, but I won’t know until I see how long the next one is.


	21. don't believe in modern love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Rey and Ben had a difficult phone convo, after which Rey decided that she's A-OK, and definitely does not love Ben kind of a lot. Which is why she was about to set off on a muthafuckin,' old school rom-com Airport Run to Go 👏 Get 👏 Her 👏 MAN. 
> 
> This chapter? Eh. Mostly filler, nothing much happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to anyone who needed to pause for angst resolution! 
> 
> You should know that this year's Pride March is actually WORLD Pride, so the crowd will be a lot larger than normal. [The route](https://s3.amazonaws.com/nyc-pride/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Route-Map-NYCPrideMarch2019.png) essentially goes south, down Fifth Avenue for about a mile and then turns west toward Stonewall and other important monuments. Rey is starting from the step off point at 28th and Fifth, but the sidewalk along the parade route is too crowded for an airport run, so Rey is going to head over to Sixth Avenue, run all the way south to the bottom of the route at 8th Street. For reference, Ben's apartment is on what would be 4th Street, near Washington Square Park. I hope that somewhat clears up the geography and god BLESS the grid system. 
> 
> @BazineApologist has created yet another amazing work, featuring [KAYDEL](https://twitter.com/bazineapologist/status/1121338078646288384). I'm cooking up a little surprise involving everyone's favorite character, so stay tuned for that. 
> 
> [Music!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0CBcNsyn40jJIXs9NoZHaF) I've _always_ said that "Doing the Unstuck" was the song I played in my head for the airport run. It is really just a perfect song for that, lyrically and musically. Is it the most exuberant song by The Cure? Maybe. 
> 
> As always, ENORMOUS thanks to [@selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256935) and [@delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991454) for giving me advice and encouragement, not just on this chapter, but on pretty much the entire 120,000+ words. Most of the best ideas actually came from them and I love admitting that.

Rey watches the floor numbers gradually decrease as one of Manhattan's slowest elevators takes its sweet ass time lowering her to the ground floor. Or maybe it’s just the rush of adrenaline messing with her perception of time. 

This must be how SoulCycle feels. 

The street had looked crowded from twenty stories up, but as she jogs through the hotel lobby to the revolving door, it's obvious that pushing through the crowd jammed shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk will require a strategy. 

Every square inch of Fifth Avenue is a mosaic of rainbow paraphernalia. She can't even _see_ the actual parade from back here—just the very tops of rainbow American flags bobbing toward the right. So that must be south. 

_Yes, okay, this is a start_. _Push right and just keep pushing. For twenty blocks. Eventually people give way. Just like that time at Bonnaroo. Hopefully with less urine._

"Excuse me! Sorry! Excuse me!" she shouts, as she sucks in her post-brunch tummy and makes herself as narrow as possible to squeeze between sweaty, half-naked torsos. The knot of her "Gays Against Electile Dysfunction" t-shirt above her belly button gets awkwardly caught on other people's bags and outstretched hands. Hopefully those _are_ outstretched hands. 

Rey has been in a mosh pit. This isn't like that. In a mosh pit, people actually _move_. 

"Please, I'm just trying to get to the end of the—"

The aggressive, staccato synth of "A Little Respect" blasts in her ears from one of the float's speakers, drowning out her voice. The corner of 25th Street is half a block ahead. A few more solid pushes and she'll be able to get away from the parade route.

"Excuse me! Can I just—? Fucking _move!_ _MOVE!_ " Maybe it’s just the natural flow of the crowd, but by some miracle, she finds herself right pushed out onto 25th, moving against the flow of traffic like a character in a 16-bit video game. _Right - left - left - left-NO-right_. She's sure, at some point, some asshole at her crappy gym suggested agility training. She’d probably laughed and wondered when the hell that skill would ever come in handy.

Apparently Airport Run parkour is the use case. 

She makes a sharp left onto Sixth Avenue—past a CVS, a Verizon, and a Starbucks. _Truly the best of New York on this block_. What a Ben Solo Mood(™). 

It’s about ten times more crowded here than it usually is, but apparently, if you just run at full speed toward something, with a determined look on your face, people will take it upon themselves to get the hell out of your way. It's like a magic trick for three blocks. She takes full strides, like a motherfucking sprinter: arms pumping, knees high. 

_Yes. Progress_. It’s happening. It’s working. She even successfully ignores the siren call of pizza, street meat...and a different variety of pizza that also smells really, really good. 

By the time she hits 22nd Street, she feels like a goddamned gazelle. She flat out _leaps_ over an open grate, her hair actually blowing behind her in the wind. A few more blocks like this and she'll reach Eighth Street in, like, seven minutes. 

Four seconds later, she gets a stitch in her side. 

_Shit. Shitshitshit._ The french toast at brunch. And the plate of bacon. And also the hollandaise. She slows to a power walk, jamming her hand into the right side of her abdomen as the opening verse of "Don't Stop Me Now" drifts down 20th Street from the parade. Rey lets herself double over for a second, remembering that twenty blocks is like...a full mile. And she hasn't been to the gym in, uh, five months?

_Shiiiiiiitt._

_Okay. It's okay. Walk it off for a few seconds._ It's fourteen blocks between the location where she's currently dry heaving and the spot where Ben is probably feeling personally affronted by the colorful outfits and effusive joy. 

_Goddammit, he’s totally wearing black to this, isn't he?_

_Okay. Yes. Must get to the only dour person at this uplifting, life-affirming event_. She skip-walks into an easy jog, dodging the clumps of pedestrians at a more moderate pace.

 _This is fine. Yes. Keep moving. Gonna make it. YES. A breath in through the nose-2-3, breath out through the mouth-2-3. In through the nose, out through the—_

_Ooh... a pretzel stand that's not mobbed._

She hadn’t intended to get a snack—just something to rehydrate—but thank Christ for that little stick-on pocket she'd put on her phone case to hold _one_ emergency debit card. 

It turns out that it's possible to run really fast (okay, _reasonably_ fast), while inhaling a soft pretzel and clutching a slippery bottle of blue Powerade. 

As the numbers on the street signs get smaller, it becomes more challenging to smoothly weave through the unfamiliar faces and screaming colors and blaring Britney Spears remixes. _God, it's hot. It's so fucking hot._ Rey slows to a walk in the swelling crowd. 

When she reaches the intersection of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, it's like someone turns over the little hourglass timer on a board game and things suddenly get very real. It's no longer just, "how fast can I get there?" It's "this is actually happening" and "my whole face must be the color of a cherry tomato" and "what the fuck is going to happen if I actually find him?" and “how, exactly, do you confess your love for someone?” And, most aggravatingly, "what if he's not alone?"

 _Really? You're really going there, now, brain?_ The mind really has a knack for some grade-A self-sabotage at the perfect time. 

In the thick of the crowd, she starts to feel like a child sneaking into a wedding reception for grown-ups only. Everyone surrounding her is part of a social group or a couple. They’re all _elated_. They all have props to wave and selfies to take, and she’s alone and nervous and trying to un-fuck up a fraught situation by surprising someone whose feelings might be bordering on hostile. Beads of sweat drip down her back and her temples. Of all days to forget a damn hair tie. 

Moving east across Eighth Street to the intersection with Fifth Avenue, she feels her heart race for reasons other than an unprecedented amount of cardio. Because, now, he could be anywhere on this block. It's like a Bizarro, life-size edition of _Where's Waldo?_ in which the object is to find the absurdly wide, emo man wearing all black, instead of the skinny, bug-eyed nerd in a red and white striped sweater. There are actually a lot of Waldo-looking men in the crowd. But no Bens. 

She pushes her way onto the sidewalk along the parade route, where everyone’s jammed up against one another. He’d be on the opposite side of the street if he walked from his place. But she’s six or seven people back from the curb and she can’t see a damn thing. 

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" kicks in as some flashy, corporate-sponsored, ABBA-themed float approaches the corner and the entire crowd starts moving and bouncing to Sweden’s greatest cultural export. 

Rey seizes the opportunity to gain some ground. Plastering a huge smile on her face, she disco bounces right into the middle of the clump of people dancing in front of the curb in matching Heritage of Pride shirts. It's a patented Finn technique: if you sing along and look like you're having _such_ a great time, strangers in a crowd will let you get away with anything. 

At least it gets her just two people away from the waist-height metal barriers that line the edges of the parade route.

She cranes her neck, scanning the sea of faces across Fifth Avenue. Finding a tall, dark needle in a haystack is so much more difficult when everyone is bopping around to ABBA, like they’re in the world's largest private karaoke room. 

Except—

There's one head that’s not bopping. There’s a man with dark hair, standing with his arms crossed, mouth turned slightly down, surrounded by a group of men in matching logo shirts who are _really_ feeling the second verse. 

He couldn’t look more out of place if he tried. ( _And it’s possible he did try._ ) Who the hell wears sunglasses on such a cloudy day? What kind of pretentious snob gets up in the morning—knowing they’ll be attending an event symbolized by rainbows—and still puts on a black t-shirt and black jeans?

 _My_ pretentious snob. Possibly.

She jumps up to get a better view just as the ABBA float slows to a stop directly in front of her. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

At first, Ben thinks he's seeing things. Maybe it's all the visual stimulation playing tricks on his mind. Because sometimes he’ll be walking behind a girl with light brown hair in a messy top knot and wonder…

It never is. 

But his breath catches when he spots the girl on the other side of the parade who looks an awful lot like Rey. It's a wide avenue—it's difficult to see details from this distance—but her eyes had grown large with recognition just as the Airbnb-sponsored float had pulled up to a stop in the street between them, blocking his view of her. 

This fucking company is already throwing a wrench into any meaningful rent-stabilization reform, why shouldn’t they also destroy his sightline to this Rey imposter?

Ben takes some ineffective clearing breaths, as another obnoxious lip sync performance takes place directly in front of him. 

He's the only person on the block not dancing around like a fool. It's a familiar feeling. It's like his whole life has been a party where everyone else is enjoying themselves, while he sulks in the corner, thinking up clever insults out of frustration and jealousy. 

Really, it’s ridiculous that he’s even standing here, like a sitting duck, waiting to be recognized by an angry rainbow mob. He might as well have a target on his back. _Then again_ —maybe no one gives a shit about him today. The thought of finally being irrelevant and forgotten is oddly freeing. 

The CNN float is just up the block. Ten more minutes of this before he can leave with a clear conscience: he'll be able to honestly say he saw Hux make an ass out of himself for thirty seconds and get back to the loft before the storm hits. 

Marchers keep trying to hand him stuff: pamphlets, candy, condoms. Really, parades are fucking stupid in 2019. What's the point? Millions of people, lined up to watch thousands of other people walk down a street, accompanied by remixes of songs nobody had liked the first time. It's not like the people marching are any more special than the viewers. They’re showing up to watch Hux and fucking Don Lemon stand and wave from a shiny platform on a slow-moving truck? Really? To see Chuck-fucking-Schumer shout some platitudes from behind a bullhorn? This is the best entertainment this fucking city has to offer?

He exhales. 

The ABBA float suddenly surges forward. Finally. 

As the last of the dancers in 70s-era costumes follow the back of the float in a puff of glitter, Ben catches sight of the girl again. She’s easy to spot because she's still staring directly at him with an off-putting intensity. 

He takes off his sunglasses and the exposure of the whole scene changes. The unfiltered vividness of the colors is like a fucking assault on his eyes. 

As soon as he tucks the glasses onto the neckline of his shirt, her face lights up and his heart fucking stops.

 _Rey_. 

She looks a little bit different—kind of exhausted and red in the face—but it's _her_. 

And even if he hasn't had the specific shapes of her facial features memorized for the last eight— _or has it been nine?_ —years, he would still know it was her because she opens her mouth and screams out—

“Ben!” It’s barely audible over the roar of the crowd, but he hears it. " _Ben!_ " she yells again, her voice sounding almost ragged. Of course he _would_ be standing in front of eight members of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, who want to _perform_ every passing song at a volume of eleven, so he can't really hear anything except their full-throated rendition of "Take a Chance On Me." 

Is it possible that it's a coincidence? That two out of _eight million_ people could randomly run into each other three separate times?

Or... 

Had she maybe come to—

He sees her reach forward and grab for the metal crowd control barrier. 

_Fuck_. 

Rey has one bare leg over the top bar before a police officer rushes over and forces her back behind it. Ben pushes a couple inches closer to the curb, as if that will somehow make a difference. 

She argues with the cop. She’s gesticulating. Pointing across the street. At him _._

 _What the fuck is this?_

The officer walks away with some kind of warning gesture and Rey looks back over to Ben, leaning forward against the barrier, both hands grasping the bars, with one foot resting on the lower bar of the barricade, like she's ready to push down and jump over it a second time. 

Her white tube socks stop just below her knees and they have rainbow stripes at the top. He lets his eyes roam up her legs. It's far away enough that she can't tell exactly where he's looking, anyway. 

There's a sliver of stomach peaking out under her knotted t-shirt, even though she's wearing high-waisted, rainbow-trimmed shorts. And they are very short. It’s that ridiculous-but-cute aesthetic that momentarily reminds him of dressing her up in his clothes. It makes his throat tight. 

Her skin is flushed and glistening, with either sweat or glitter. It’s impossible to tell at this event. And her hair is down, for once. It’s a little shorter—like in the photo. 

That he'd downloaded onto his phone. 

There's a cluster of children, straight out of central casting, holding the back of a balloon arch and passing in front of her, but somehow she's still the most adorable thing on this block. 

_What gives her the fucking right? To show up here? In tiny shorts? And shout his name like that?_

"Ben!" Rey's mouth continues to move, like she's still yelling something important, but the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus insists on filling the momentary void of recorded music with their a capella take on that insipid Justin Timberlake song about dancing trolls. 

She reaches in the neck of her shirt, and pulls out a phone...from her bra. It's the least surprising thing that's happened in the last five minutes. 

He watches—mildly horrified—as she wipes the phone screen on her shorts, before bowing her head slightly to type. 

Two seconds later, Ben feels his back pocket buzz. He reaches for it, keeping his eyes on Rey. She's watching him the way contestants on _The Great British Bake-off_ watch their ovens. Even from this distance, he can see her chest rise and fall. 

Rey  
  
**Today** 1:47 PM  
**Rey:** Hi.   
  
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.   
  


Oh, she's been _thinking._ As if he hasn't been _thinking_ and _overthinking_ and _rethinking_ for the last fucking eight months. He knows it's more bullshit. He knows she's going to say something that _seems_ harmless and friendly, while it actually upsets the hell out of the fragile balance of his inner turmoil.

And yet—

He doesn't type a response, but just looks back up at her, giving the most subtle and reluctant nod of assent possible while a troupe of drag performers lip syncing to a Rihanna medley occupies the space between them. 

She immediately lowers her head again, stepping down off the barrier, as if this text requires serious concentration. He feels himself grinding his jaw. 

He looks north and sees Hux's stupid fucking float on the next block, crawling toward the Eighth Street intersection. Dameron still hasn't showed.

Rey remains focused intently on the phone, thumbs hovering over the screen, apparently writing a thousand-word-long persuasive essay about why they're so much better as friends.

"Hey, I know this guy." He hears the voice from his right, over the music. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that it belongs to a man in a Love is Love is Love is Love t-shirt with elaborately groomed facial hair. Ben lets himself ignore it until he hears: "That fucking asshole with the glasses from the First Order? The _meme_. Remember?" 

Ben has heard this kind of exchange enough times to know that the speaker must be imitating one of the many Kylo Ren GIFs that popped up in the wake of his exit from the network.

There’s not enough room for him to physically extricate himself, but that also means the guy probably can't get closer, either.

He squeezes his phone again. Rey's head is still lowered. Maybe she’s proofreading. 

Minutes must have passed.Goddamn _minutes. What the fuck?_

"I'm gonna Google him,” says a second voice. 

“It's the meme with the thing? It comes up when you search ‘fail’ on Giphy."

 _Fucking hell_. 

He's looking to his left for any kind of opening to escape, when his phone buzzes in his hand, nearly causing him to drop it in surprise. 

 

Rey  
  
**Today** 1:52 PM  
**Rey:** I love you.   
  


That's all it says. 

He stares at the three words he would have strangled metaphorical kittens to hear six months ago, before looking up at her. 

She's not typing anything else. She's just staring at him, eyebrows slightly raised, her mouth in a tight line, like she's trying to hold something in. 

“Yeah, that’s totally him. Fucking soulless hypocrite."

He’s embarrassed by how his heart lodges in his throat as he looks down at the screen again. And back up at Rey. 

It’s not that easy, though. Nothing about the two of them has ever been as straightforward as a declarative statement and a direct response.

**Ben:** That’s it?   
  
**Rey:** No, there's a speech but to be honest this is not how I envisioned this going down.   
  


"Why the fuck do these clowns come to an event celebrating _love_?"

 _Earplugs would be fucking amazing right now._

Ben tentatively steps three inches to the left, hoping to get around the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, but a hand clamps down on his right shoulder just as he turns. 

"I found you!" 

Ben looks up and to the right, fully expecting to get an up close and personal view of the angry, and impeccably groomed facial hair man, but instead he's startled to see a familiar face. 

"What are the odds?" Dameron exclaims, nearly whacking someone on the head with his hand gesture. "I wasn't even looking for my wife and here he is." He furrows his brow. "Christ, you look like you've seen a ghost. I didn't think it was possible for you to be _more_ pale."

For about 1.3 seconds, Ben teeters on the verge of letting something about Rey slip out, but he manages to contain it. 

"It's...probably the heat."

“You’re welcome to wear my Make America Gay Again hat,” he says, holding out a blindingly shiny baseball cap. Ben shakes his head. “For the record, metallic silver is your other color.”

Dameron pushes in, so that they're standing shoulder to shoulder. Ben holds his phone practically up to shoulder height to keep his screen private. 

"Why do straight people always think gay men care about their drama?" Dameron says under his breath.

**Ben:** You don’t just get to come back here and say that, like ntithjg happened.  
  


For the first time in his texting life, he's too frenzied to care about the typo. He lets his phone hand drop down to his side and looks across the street, watching for her unfiltered reaction. Her face is resolute.

There's a peel of thunder and the pickup truck pulling the CNN float slows to a stop in the street between them, blocking his view. 

"You see? Perfect timing," Dameron observes, nudging him. "There he is. And I get credit for being here because I have a witness."

There's an 80s drum beat and David Bowie's "Modern Love" kicks in, as Dameron points up at Hux, standing atop the float, a foot or two lower than Anderson Cooper, clapping along to the song and rocking side to side. 

It's horrifying.

**Rey:** I’m saying it because of everything that happened. Because I missed you so ducking much every moment I was away.  
  
*fucking  
  
goddammit autocorrect  
  


"Holy shit, he's doing it. He's doing the lip sync. I told him to just stand there and wave like Coop. Even Don Lemon has a little self-respect. And he's dressed like Jareth." 

**Ben:** I get that you're lonely. But you cnat just show up here and ambush me and expct to just ride off into the sunset together.   
  


_Stupid fucking giant thumbs on tiny keyboards_.

"I told him to give it up when Coop claimed Ziggy Stardust Bowie. That was the game right there. People don't recognize _Let's Dance_ Bowie as a valid era. It just looks like an ugly suit with an undone bow tie. And he bleached his hair for this. I still can't believe it. His whole on-screen persona is, like, eighty-four percent hair." 

Ben tunes Dameron out until his voice is little more than white noise against the Bowie vocals with ample backup by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. 

**Ben:** I'm not doign this again. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want to be the person you crawl back to when the other thing doesn't work out.  
  
**Rey:** I’m not crawling. I ducking ran here.  
  
There is no other thing. There never was.  
  
**Today** 1:55 PM  
Just you.  
  


“Can you imagine if the storm hits before they make it to the end of the route? I bet Coop just steps off the thing and into a waiting car. Good thing your apartment is nearby.”

 _Fuck._ If he could just _see_ her right now. _Fucking stupid CNN float Hux garbage fire._

This isn't how he pictured this confession happening, either. But he absolutely has to get _something_ out of her. Something more solid. Some clarity. 

**Ben:** The speech.   
  
I want the speech. The whole thing.   
  
**Rey:** I don't know about typing it like this.  
  
My hands are shaking.   
  
And Hux is gyrating. Are your eyes also bleeding at this sacrilege?  
  
**Ben:** FUCKING TYPE IT.   
  
NOW.   
  


The ellipsis reappears on the screen and Ben exhales. 

"You know, he hooked up with Coop. Twice. This whole float arrangement? It's a power move. Hux says he feels threatened. Hey, can you grab some video of this, maybe a Boomerang or something? My iCloud storage is full and I'm not ready to delete anything yet."

The ellipsis is still going. There's another crack of thunder. 

Ben is still staring at the ellipsis when Dameron's hand grabs for the phone. 

"No!" 

"You're gonna miss it. They won't play the whole song. I'll take the video if you don't want—"

"Get your hands off my fucking phone," Ben yells, wrenching the device back. 

"Okay. Jesus. I guess I'll just delete my video from Friday night." 

Dameron shakes his head while scrolling through his Photos app.

The ellipsis is still animating when Ben feels the first drops. A few heads in the crowd tilt upward. He doesn't notice the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus putting on their rainbow ponchos. 

Rey  
  
**Rey:** I love that thing you do with your mouth when you’re deciding what to say next.  
  
I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich and it's still never right.  
  
I love that I have a Pavlovian smile response every single time I get a text from you, even if it’s just one word, because you still make me a little nervous and excited.  
  
I love that you'll hatewatch any terrible movie I suggest just so we can keep talking. I miss respectfully (mostly) pointing out why you're wrong about anything to do with politics and pop culture.   
  
I love that I want to wake up to your voice every morning and fall asleep to it every night. And I've been abusing technology to replicate that for months. But it's not enough. It's never been enough.  
  
I want to buy the organic grapes with you. I want to wear your shirts sometimes. I want you to take your shirts off me.  
  
I‘ve built my entire life around not needing anyone. But I NEED you. I'm sorry it took me so long to let myself believe that.   
  
I don't know if these are the right words to make you believe in it, too. I know I'm not okay yet. And I know it might be too late. But you said there's never going to be a perfect time.   
  
I think we deserve to be happy. And I don't want to wait for it anymore.   
  
Because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.   
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey grips the metal bars of the barrier and waits for Ben to look up from his phone, heart thumping in her chest in a way that feels like a potential medical issue. It's either the beginning of a love story or a moment she'll be narrating for new therapists in the years to come. 

The coloring of the street begins to mottle as a fat raindrops hit the pavement. The couple on her left push past her, heading for cover under an awning. Hux is still dancing in his baggy yellow suit with exaggerated shoulder pads, but he's also looking nervously up at the sky every few seconds. 

She'd be enjoying the potential schadenfreude of this Hux situation if she weren't so damn terrified of whatever the next ten seconds holds. 

At least the rain feels cold against her flushed skin. 

There's another crack of thunder and the panic in the crowd becomes more palpable. A group of men in matching rainbow ponchos pushes against Ben, but he still doesn't look up from the phone. People scurry in every direction, holding jackets and flags over their heads. 

There's no new message. No ellipsis. Poe is talking in his direction, gesturing and pointing, before moving down the block to get Hux’s attention.

Ben is the only person in the crowd who doesn't seem affected by the steadily increasing downpour as he finally raises his head. 

He’s not smiling. He’s not frowning.

There's something in his expression—a seriousness—that makes her tuck the phone back in her bra. _Yes_. _It has to be a yes_. She places her foot on the lower bar of the barrier and pushes off, swinging her other leg over the top bar and landing, clumsily, on the street. The cops are too busy directing the fleeing hordes to notice.

She starts to sprint around the float, allowing a tiny bit of hope to take root among her racing thoughts.

_It's happening. Actually fucking happening._

Ben practically shoves aside the handful of people in front of him, working his way up to the barrier on his side, as Rey dashes to the east side of the street, barely dodging a handful of marchers in soaking wet CNN t-shirts. Hux is screaming from the top of the float as Anderson Cooper gets escorted into the shelter of the pickup truck. 

"Ben!" she yells, almost crashing into the barrier, just as he makes it to the front of the rapidly thinning crowd. He holds up his phone; but there’s a distressed—almost cold—look in his eye.

“How do you expect me to respond to this?” he shouts over the commotion.

She breathes in.

“How about ‘I love you, too?’ ”

She doesn't breathe out.

“How about, it’s too late for you to show up and say things that—” He stops himself. _Shit_. “All I’ve been doing over the last five months is trying to just...get over this.”

_Shit._ This isn't how declarations of love begin. 

“Are you—are you over it?”

With every second that he stares at her, his face both stern and confused, her heart clenches a little tighter. 

_No. No no no no no._

_It’s impossible._ Airport runs followed by dramatic speeches have a one hundred percent success rate in fiction. 

Rey’s throat tightens until it feels like she might choke. Her vision is already blurry from the tears and the rain, but she can see that there’s something immovable in his expression. He’s not changing his mind; he’s just working out how to say it.

“I don't—”

_Oh God._

_Oh God._ She turns away, facing the street, the first pangs of a familiar emotion pricking her chest before he can complete the rest of the sentence. 

_Discarded again_. 

Her pulse races as she takes a step toward the street where the marchers are scrambling to pull CNN logo ponchos over their heads. _Don’t let him see you like this_. _Walk away, walk away._

Maybe there’s a place to take shelter in a block or two. She could text Rose and Finn. Like calling mom and dad to come pick you up after your date doesn’t show up to the movie theater at the mall. Not that she would know about things parents do for their children.

Deep breath. _You can cry when you’re alone again._ _Don’t do this here. Hold it the fuck together. South is to the le—_

A hand grabs onto her right arm, just below her shoulder and it feels like that one hand could lift her off the ground. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be over this.”

She freezes for a second, eyes widening at the recognition of his words and his firm grip against her skin. 

_He's not? He's still…?_

She lets go of the sob she'd been holding in for the last minute and fresh, hot tears slip down her cheeks. 

There's a tug at her arm and she turns to face him. He swallows hard. There might be tears in his eyes, too, but it’s impossible to tell with the rain.

She feels limp and slightly disbelieving as Ben pulls her into his body, as close as the bars of the barrier will allow, tucking her head into his chest and wrapping his arms around her, temporarily shielding her from the downpour. His t-shirt is sopping wet against her left cheek, but she hangs on to him like the cop might come back and pull her away any second. They stay like that until her breathing slows back to a regular rhythm. 

“Tell me you mean it.” He bows his head down and speaks softly into her ear. “Tell me you’re not going to take it back tomorrow.” 

_Tomorrow_. It’s too much to process. There’s a tomorrow. For them. She swallows. 

“I can't take it back. It’s on your phone, you have the receipts.” He runs his mouth along the shell of her right ear and behind it, laying delicate kisses along her neck. Apparently, he hasn't forgotten her weak spots. She doesn't bother to dial back her reaction this time— _what's the point?_ —and she lets out a little moan as he moves up her jawline until their faces are almost aligned and she can hold his gaze. “I want you." It's freeing, telling him. Letting it spill out. Letting herself feel an unmitigated, raw emotion. " _I. Want. You._ I wish I could've said it a long time ago.”

“Better late than never.”

“I want to keep saying it.”

Ben nods and holds her face in his hands, tilting her chin up in a way that makes her automatically part her lips. But instead of going in for the kiss, he closes his eyes, and touches his forehead to hers.

“I really fucking missed you.”

“I really missed fucking you.”

He sighs into her mouth.

“Brat.”

“Your brat.”

He strokes his thumb up and down her cheek. It's the simplest thing, but she moves her head against his hand, drinking in the feeling of being cared for. Finally. 

“Mine.” 

Rey steps up on the lower bar of the barrier to make up the inches between them.

She can’t feel the rain. She can’t feel the vibrating bass of the last 40 seconds of “Modern Love” that’s still playing over the chaos in the street. She can’t feel the crush of people bumping against the barrier in a rush to find cover. The thing she feels— _the only thing_ —is Ben: his lips covering and moving against hers, his hands tangling in her wet hair, then moving down her back and under her ass, lifting her over the metal bars.

Her feet don't touch the ground on the other side. She wraps her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles, and holding tight as people continue to jostle past them and the rain continues to fall.

She breathes him in. The softness of his mouth, the way his long nose juts into her cheek, the faint trace of his nonsense cologne, the pale triangle of smooth chest that's visible above the v-shaped neckline of his shirt. She wants to capture his bottom lip in between her teeth and keep it for a few seconds. Like there's finally something that actually belongs to her. 

After all the iPod-fueled imagining and fantasizing, the visceral reality of his face, his arms, his chest brushing against her body—

It's like a shock to her nervous system.  
It's like the awe of a new discovery mixed with the sweet relief of passing out in your own bed.  
It's like realizing you had The One Ring in your junk drawer for the last decade. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben is vaguely aware of the commotion around them as the rainfall slows to a gentle summer afternoon shower. There’s a constant flow of soaking wet people streaming past, looking for the nearest awning to wait out the rest of it. Nobody seems to care much about a couple (a _couple_ ), passionately making out against the unsturdy metal barrier. 

They're the only two people in a crowd of two million who aren't in a rush to get somewhere else. 

He doesn't care that the weight of the water in her clothes and hair has made her a little more challenging to carry.  
He doesn't care that her tongue appears to be blue ( _what kind of adult woman drinks fucking blue Powerade?_ )  
He doesn't care that the Pop Socket on her phone, stored in her bra, is cutting into his collarbone and possibly scratching the lenses of his Tom Ford sunglasses. 

She's _here_. She has her blue tongue down his throat. She's wearing tiny shorts and tall socks while her ass is literally in his hands. 

And she loves him. 

"I want to hear you say it," he says, between messy, rain-soaked kisses and heavy breaths. "Out loud."

She doesn't pretend not to know what he's talking about this time. It's some kind of fucking miracle.

"I love you," she says, almost shyly, into his ear, like she’s still getting used to it. 

He nuzzles into her neck, closing his eyes.

"Louder. I can't hear you."

He pulls his head back to see her face.

"I _love_ you.” She blinks against the raindrops, but she’s meeting his gaze. Finally.

Maybe he's pushing his luck, but...

"Say it again."

Her eyes narrow a bit and he feels her hand slide down into his jeans pocket and pull out his phone, turning it around for him to unlock it with facial recognition. It takes a couple tries.

“Wow. Your phone is unfamiliar with you actually smiling,” she teases, flipping the the screen back toward her. 

“Pointing out when someone is smiling is the fastest way to get them to stop, you know.”

“Oh, I think I can get you to do it again,” she says, the corners of her mouth curving up into what is— _objectively—_ most beautiful smile in the world.

She types for a few seconds before holding it out to him, with the Notes app covering the screen.

 **Rey:** Why don’t you take me back to your apartment and make me scream it?

 

Well, she’s not wrong about her ability to produce smiles.

Rey laughs and kisses him again, as he allows himself to feel something like honest-to-god optimism without trying to rationalize his way out of it. For once.

"Booooooo! _Fuck you!_ " 

"What the fuck—" Ben breaks the kiss to turn his head toward the source of the jeering. _Another_ fucking heckler? Who the hell literally _boos_ a pair of strangers on the street?

"The one day of the year that's supposed to be about us and I have to watch this straight _bullshit?_ " She’s a surprisingly young looking woman with a husky voice and wavy red hair, wearing a Bernie Sanders t-shirt. “Fuck both of you." 

He sets Rey down on her feet, a bit relieved that the verbal assault isn't, strictly speaking, a personal attack. 

"Excuse me?" he offers, making a conscious effort not to blow up at a woman at a gay pride event.

"We haven't seen each other in almost six months,” Rey adds, “so—"

"I don't fucking care about you. I came all the way here from my pre-college program at Brown for some actual intersectionality. And this—” she gestures at them “—is basic A.F. Take your hetero energy back to Jersey."

"—How _old_ are you?" 

"—Just so you know, I'm bi."

"Good for you, bitch. Really taking one for the team, then," she says, knocking a wide-eyed Rey in the shoulder as she walks past with a scowl. 

Rey turns her head to watch her continue up Fifth.

"I like her." 

“ ‘Jersey?’ Really?” 

” _That’s_ what offended you about that interaction?”

“She’s probably from Rockville Centre.”

Rey gives him one of those looks like she has another quip to add, but she bites her slightly swollen lip instead and says nothing. 

They stand in slightly awkward silence for a few moments. Maybe she's also contemplating the obvious next step of this reunion.

"Want to go back to the lof—"

"Yes."

“—I have towels.” Again, he waits for her to add some double entendre, but she just looks at him as her mouth curves into a soft little smile. “And a shower. And a bed.” She nods, slowly. “And a very sturdy kitchen table.” 

He swears she blushes.

Before they can make their escape, Dameron hops over the barrier, with Hux following behind on the other side, muttering something about his ruined suit, damaged hair, and “that cunt, Andy Cohen.”

“Fuck first, talk later?” he whispers, submitting to the familiar desire to give her exactly what she wants.

But a little crease forms between over her brow and she presses her lips together, as if she’s actually contemplating the suggestion. 

“Actually, I think for once I want to try it the other way around.”

”You’re choosing _this_ moment to grow as a person?”

“Rey?” Dameron shouts, from down the block.

She gives her friend a single wave in acknowledgment, but her eyes are still on Ben. She flashes another little smile—one that’s just for him.

“Better late than never.” 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not finished yet.” And we will pick up here in the next update. I don't think everything can be resolved with a kiss and I promised to pay off all the angst and show them being happy and stuff. So we will do that! 
> 
>  In the meantime, let me know how you're feeling about all this!
> 
> Outfit reference: [Her t-shirt](https://store.revelandriot.com/t-shirts/rr010055-fun-electile-dysfunction-t-shirt-white/). [ shorts?](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1MJ5ZX5CYBuNkSnaVq6AMsVXaS/SweatyRocks-Rainbow-Tape-Trim-Dolphin-Shorts-Ladies-Black-Mid-Waist-Striped-Casual-Shorts-2017-Fall-Elastic.jpg_640x640.jpg) [ socks? ](https://www.artisansocks.com/img/productimages/b/rainbow-socks-striped-knee-high-socks-1229b1.jpg)
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> [Don Lemon ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lemon)  
> [Bonnaroo ](https://www.bonnaroo.com/)  
> [ Chuck Schumer ](https://www.schumer.senate.gov/)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I've been on a bit of a writing kick lately. I wrote [a little canonverse one-shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18644044), a weird anon one-shot, and the first chapter of a new short fic that I'll probably post pretty soon.


	22. Take a Chance on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: Our clueless space babies reunited after Rey ran through the Pride March to declare her love for Ben. But they still have some things to figure out _and_ they have some unwelcome company in the form of Hux and Poe Dameron. 
> 
> This time: How much conversing are these two actually going to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeey. 
> 
> Happy Pride month and look at this pixel-perfect [drawing of Rey climbing the barrier](https://twitter.com/bazineapologist/status/1130795615779057664) in the last chapter by BazineApologist. 
> 
> So, fair warning, this chapter is long AF and I'm sorry about that because I hoped to keep chapters short. I really hate to add such a big chunk of words because I'm sure the total word count scares people off already. But there really wasn't a great place to cut it (believe me, I tried it many ways and got several second opinions on whether to split it). But a good chunk of it is smut (like a full third?) so hopefully it'll just go quickly for you? 😂 I just really appreciate that y'all waded through the angst, so I'm trying to pay that off and I'm wordy AF. 
> 
> There are some GIFs in the text messages this time (including a NSFW one -- look out, people who read in public like me!), so I suggest reading it on the AO3 interface with all the formatting, although I'll try to add text descriptions, too. 
> 
> I snuck some Easter eggs in here. Actually they are just references to things that were mentioned earlier in the fic and some WHMS things, but because so much time has passed since I started posting this thing, I'm sure many people have forgotten them, so I'll try to highlight as many as I can in the end notes. 
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/79F7JtIRnaoI9hNAmRZhaS) for this chapter.
> 
> If you haven't seen The Princess Bride, a quick skim of the [first paragraph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_\(film\)) of its Wiki page might be a good idea. There's a long reference to it that will be a lot clearer if you have at least a little context. In short, you should know that the novel it's based on uses a framing device where the author comments on a story within a story. 
> 
> As always, ENORMOUS thanks to [@selunchen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17256935) and [@delia-pavorum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991454) for reading through this beast and calling me out for my tendency to avoid "thoughts and feelings."

[ ](https://i.ibb.co/QCD0PW5/Doing-the-Unstuck-6.png)

 

 

"Where did you come from?" Poe asks Rey, as Hux struggles to climb the barrier with any semblance of dignity. "Did you run through the sewers like a Ninja Turtle or something? I left before you." He gives her a knowing look, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly. "And why are you _smiling_ like that?"

"This is a fucking vintage Armani suit. What kind of bloody contingency plan decrees that an _assistant_ has priority access to the truck over _me_? I'm fucking _talent_!"

Rey doesn't answer. She actually hadn't been aware of her own smile, but there are a few potential causes: least of all, Hux's agitation at being left out in the rain like a forgotten toy. The others are none of Poe's business.

The rain begins to pick up again, sending the remnants of the parade viewers running for the awnings along 8th Street. Hux awkwardly maneuvers himself over the metal bar and looks through Rey to address Ben. 

"Solo, I need to use your shower." He says it matter-of-factly, like this is a normal request. "I'll have my assistant deliver some clothes to your apartment."

"Absolutely not," Ben says, not actually giving Hux the courtesy of his attention. His eyes are...elsewhere.

Rey can still feel her heart thumping hard behind her ribs. It's something about the way he's looking at her. 

"Since when do you have an assistant?" Poe asks. "I thought they cut the budget on—"

"I have a small army of production assistants and any one of them would be happy to perform a favor for me," he snaps, turning back to Ben. "Come on, then. My fingers are pruning."

"No." Ben finally acknowledges his physical presence. "You are _not_ , under _any circumstances_ , coming back to the loft today."

"Is this some kind of joke? I'm drenched." His voice lowers ominously. "And you _owe_ me."

"Not. A. Fucking. Chance. In. Hell."

Hux makes a show of turning on his heel— _is he wearing lifts?_ —and appealing to his sometime-frenemy-with-benefits for backup.

"What the fuck is this? You said we could _freshen_ at his apartment. I have _after parties_. I need to prep."

Poe glances at Rey. She responds with a look meant to communicate _I haven't been fucked in six months, so if you value your life, you will make no further effort to embarrass me_...but, like, in a subtle way. 

"I'm getting the sense," he says slowly, "that they might want to be alone."

"Solo wants to be alone—" Hux gives Rey the most cursory possible glance "—with this one?" 

"I'm right _here_ ," Rey says. "I can see and hear you." 

He turns to Ben again. 

"You're really going to leave two gay men on the street during bloody _Pride_?"

Rey shifts her weight back and forth, feeling extremely hetero and a bit shamed for the second time in the last three minutes. She watches the mostly same-sex couples clinging to each other, rushing off in search of temporary shelter while the rain continues to fall steadily. Hux is an entitled, insufferable prick, but he's not exactly _wrong_ about this one thing. 

"It's still raining, Ben," she says, pulling him slightly off to the side. "Maybe just let them dry off really quickly and then—" she suggests.

"They can get a cab."

"Thousands of people are looking for cabs right now."

"Then he can _walk_ to his own apartment. It's just water."

" _Walk_ to Hudson Yards?" Hux interjects. "From _here?_ "

"You have legs."

Rey pushes Ben back another step.

"We're just gonna be talking at first, right?"

"And we can't have privacy while we _talk_?"

"Ten minutes?"

" _Rey._ No."

The certainty in Ben's voice makes her stomach twist. The nerves are a different flavor than last time. She definitely _wants_ to go up to the loft without two chaperones. It's just that they haven't had more than two minutes to acclimate to, well, whatever happens now. There's still a really serious conversation to have. She's already received the notification to check in for her flight tomorrow. And something inside her just will not tolerate leaving people on the street with nowhere to go. Even if one of them is vile.

There's another crack of thunder and the rain starts to fall harder. 

"Ben. Let them dry off and call an Uber or something. Please. It's Pride." 

"Careful, Solo. Technically, _she's_ the interloper. We had plans—"

"We did _not_ have plans." Ben gives her frustrated look, clenching his jaw. "Ten minutes. One towel each."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben lets Bert and Ernie walk in front of Rey and him, affording them the tiniest bit of privacy. They're still arguing over Don Lemon's Jareth wig, so it's not as if they'd necessarily notice that Rey's left hand had brushed against Ben's right. Or that he'd spread his fingers and Rey had laced hers through them. 

It's very sweet. But he's also fighting the not-as-sweet urge to push her up against one of the storefronts on Eighth Street and get his hands inside her little shorts.

He hears his name every so often, presumably in an effort to drag him into a conversation about whether Andy Cohen had _actually_ meant to invite Hux to the after party at Club Cumming. But it's almost like their chatter is playing on a TV in the corner of a dive bar and no one’s paying attention. He's preoccupied.

He and Rey don't say anything out loud, but they sneak glances at each other. Has she always been this tan? The nose ring— _why_ would she alter that perfect fucking symmetrical face? How long is she here? Where is she staying? Or is she moving back? When did she decide to find him? Each question branches into four more questions until he loses the thread.

When his mind races like this, it's usually some kind of panic attack or even the start of a manic episode. But there's also a strange, heady thrill floating over his rapidly cycling thoughts, like he's mastered one of his old therapist's mindfulness techniques without even realizing it. 

Or maybe it's just the clarity with which he can see her breasts through her soaked white t-shirt. 

When they reach his block, someone's blasting "It's Raining Men" from a window on Lafayette, and Dameron sings along, even as Hux continues to talk his ear off about the injustices of working alongside Anderson Cooper. It's like the weather doesn't even affect him. 

Rey drops his hand when he reaches into his pocket for his keys. He elbows Dameron and a still-monologuing Hux out of the way under the awning of the building to get to the door. 

"It's not that I _want_ another international crisis to strike—" 

It's surreal doing this over again—fumbling with the lock and jamming his forefinger into the elevator button. Like he and Rey have reached an alternate timeline and this is— _maybe_ —how everything could have happened the first time. 

"—but why is it fair that Coop gets to rush over to any island with inclement weather and look like a bloody prince?"

Of course, a timeline without Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be preferable. 

Rey stands in front of him in the elevator, not quite touching him, her chest rising and falling heavily.

“He’s just standing there in a pair of Wellies holding a microphone.”

Her nipples are pebbling through the shirt—almost proudly protruding through the thin fabric. Announcing their presence. _What kind of_ talk _can they possibly have under these conditions?_

In the enclosed space, Hux finally seems to notice her, his eyes narrowing and lingering on her socks. 

"Haven't seen this one in awhile." 

The way Hux says it—the casual air of disdain—sets Ben’s teeth on edge.

"My _name_ is Rey. And I'm a _huge_ Anderson Cooper fan, so if you could get me his autograph or something—"

God, he’s missed her ferocity. 

"Fuck off," Hux says, apparently deeming her unworthy of a further scrutiny. 

Over the slightly unnerving sounds produced by the elevator’s aging mechanical system, Dameron softly whistles "Take a Chance on Me." 

Both Rey and Ben turn their heads to give looks that fall somewhere between cautionary and threatening.

"What?” he says, defensively, as the elevator bounces to a stop at the fifth floor. “It's an earworm. You can't hear that song and then _not_ hum it twenty minutes later. It's science."

"I claim first shower!" Hux announces, exiting into the loft with the undeserved confidence of a man who hosts CNN's second lowest-rated nightly show. 

"No." Ben holds open the elevator door while Dameron and Rey step out. "No showers. I'm setting a timer for ten minutes. You each get one towel. That's it."

"Why?" Hux whines, walking over to the front windows. "Be a fucking human being and let us wait out the storm in here."

"Maybe we should give them some privacy," Dameron says, with surprising tact, as Rey takes off her soaking red sneakers. Ben hopes she stops there; he's kind of into those socks. 

"Literally setting the timer now," Ben shouts, as he walks toward the back of the apartment to get the towels from the linen closet. 

"It's an enormous bloody loft. There's certainly room for four people in fifteen hundred square meters. Stop being such a miserable cunt, Solo."

Ben angrily grabs two towels from the closet and hurls them down the hallway toward Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber. 

"Nine minutes, forty-five seconds."

Glancing back toward the living area, he sees Rey run her hands through her dripping hair as she watches the unrelenting rain pelt the warped glass panes. _Does she look pensive? Does she feel trapped? Is she rethinking something?_

Impulsively, he calls out, "Rey, can you help me find more towels?" as he stares at the fully-stocked shelves of perfectly folded linens. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey runs her hand along the wooden surface of the rustic kitchen table, as she makes her way toward the back of the loft, trying to subtly discern what's changed and what hasn't. The kitchen has some new appliances. Maybe upgraded lighting? Had he done some renovations on his own? Are they still selling it, or does it look like he's starting to make it into some kind of home?

It's weird to think that the last time she'd stepped foot in this place was when she'd jabbed repeatedly at the elevator call button, nervously eyeing this very hallway and praying that Ben wouldn't emerge from the bedroom full of questions and accusations. 

Maybe things would have gone differently if he'd rushed out before the elevator arrived. Maybe they would've had that conversation, instead of dragging out the pain over days, weeks, months. Which is why they absolutely need to _talk_ this time. 

Ben's not in front of the linen closet. And there are at least a dozen luxury bath sheets, in a shade of inoffensive, neutral gray ( _did Paige pick these?_ ) at eye level. 

A second later, there's a whistling sound and a towel flies toward her from the open bedroom door. 

Rey rubs the towel over her hair and steps into the bedroom. "Can I borrow a shirt? Do you have anything in black?"

Ben shuts the door immediately, and she can tell by his expression that they’re not going to banter. 

"I'm sorry, I just—" He cages her in, her back against the door, with an arm on either side of her shoulders. "I can’t tell if—” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment “—I need to know if this is still happening."

Rey looks up at his face, a different emotion slightly rearranging his features every second. _God. He's still worried._

The room is quiet except for his breathing and the sound of the rain hitting the pavement through the open windows. She swallows and gives herself a second to collect her thoughts. 

"I'm not going anywhere," she says, reaching for his face, looking him in the eye. "I'm here, okay? _Here_. Except that I need to be in Charlotte tomorrow."

He exhales roughly, and there’s a trace of relief in it. 

"You just showed up out of nowhere.” He rubs the wet cotton blend of her shirt sleeve in between his thumb and forefinger, like he's looking for physical proof that she's not some kind of advanced hologram. 

She's about to word vomit more of an explanation when the squeak of the faucet, followed by the metal-on-metal screeching of the shower curtain rings, cuts through the white noise of the rain. 

God, she would really, _really_ love to take a shower after that combination of hot weather running and a dousing in New York City rainwater. 

"Fuck." He hits the palm of his hand against the door. "I never should have offered them towels."

"I never should have fixed your shower. I hope they're not in there together," Rey says with a small shudder. "What if we hear something?"

"If they're—” Ben looks up at the open transom over the door frame. “It does give us uninterrupted private time."

"To talk."

He nods, closing most of the distance between them.

He slides his hand under the knot of her t-shirt, his fingers crawling up, up, up to the bottom edge of her bra. She feels the towel drop from her hand.

 _This is not talking_. 

She sucks in a breath and the room gets quiet again, except for the dueling sounds of the shower and the rain. Looking down, she notices, for the first time, how transparent and clingy the material had become in the downpour. 

He doesn't need to tell her to lift her arms over her head. 

_Also, not talking_. 

She holds them up, straight against the door as he peels the shirt over the width of her shoulders and lets it drop to the ground. The damp skin on her chest and stomach starts to dry and cool in the breeze from the open window. 

_More silence._

He bends down so his mouth meets the hollow of her throat and Rey tips her head back, bumping it against the door. She feels his hands working up her back toward the closure of her bra and the only thing she wants in the world is for him to rip the damn thing away from—

"Start talking."

 _Shit._ Now?

"I—I don't know where to begin."

Ben grabs her phone out of the top of the bra—with a judgmental shake of the head—and tosses it on the mattress behind him. Then he starts working at the clasp with his giant fingers.

"How long have you been thinking about this?" he murmurs into her collarbone. 

"This?" she breathes, as he frees the stubborn last hook and eye. She feels the damp elastic drop away and his fingers smooth over the irritated skin. _Yes, much better_. 

"All of it. Coming back here." She grabs at the hem of his shirt, ready to tug it up. " _Me._ "

"I've been trying to forget about you for months. To just—let it go."

His whole body freezes. 

"What." He doesn't ask it, as much as blurt it out.

A soft clap of thunder sounds in the distance, like it's just casually reminding the city to stay indoors. 

She breathes in and out, waiting for him to move his hands again, but he doesn't. She lets go of his shirt.

"I tried to push the feelings down but...the iPod just opened the floodgates." 

He drops his hands from her back. 

"Why did it take you so long to listen to it?"

"You made it sound like it was just—just hours of audio porn," she answers honestly. "It didn't seem like a good idea t-to dive deeper into that. I didn't know it was you reading fucking 'Wild Geese.' " 

He looks a bit stricken. 

"I thought you heard it six months ago and you were—embarrassed or confused or something and just didn’t want to talk about it." 

"I—"

"It's bigger than that, though. You acted like you didn't fucking care when you left." He takes a step backward, shaking his head a bit, like he's sloughing off a bad memory. "That last time I saw you? God, I spent half of the last _year_ thinking you didn't give a shit about me. It fucking _hurt_."

Ben steps back to the side of the bed and sits down, mental gears clearly turning and recalculating his assumptions and variables. 

"You made it pretty damn clear you didn't want to hear from me," Rey says, keeping her back against the door, the front of her undone bra clinging loosely to her breasts. She can't decide whether to fasten it again or take it off. "You said you were finished. You showed up with a new girlfriend. So, I tried to just...move on, too." She takes a few tentative steps toward the bed. "I threw myself into the job, the new environment. Turns out I can actually get a lot of practical shit done with a broken heart, you know?"

Ben lifts up his head. She takes another step toward him until he's within arm's reach. 

"You're very—high-functioning," he says, closing his eyes for a moment.

The squeak of the shower faucet closing pierces the relative quiet and they both glance at the door.

"If I had listened to the iPod at Christmas, I probably _would've_ been confused. Or upset. Or backed away even more.” She reaches out and scratches her nails lightly down the back of his head. “I heard it at a time when I needed it. Because I was numb." He tugs at the front of her now-useless bra, until the straps slip down her arms and the whole thing falls away, leaving her exposed "I was so fucking lonely. I missed you so much. Hearing your voice, all those feelings I forced down this whole time, they just flooded me. I felt something good again for the first time since—since we..."

He's staring at her chest with furrowed brow and she wonders if the way her heart is pounding is visible through her skin. 

"Keep talking."

"It gave me hope," she says, reaching for the bottom of his shirt again and pulling up on the hem, needing to see him, too. He doesn't resist, as she lifts it over his head. "I let myself imagine what it might be like…"

She hitches her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and pushes them down past her hips and down her legs, stepping out of them.

"...what it would feel like, to just..."

His eyes roam down to her underwear—admittedly, a pair that has seen better days. 

"...be with you again." He's still staring down, just below her belly button, with a slightly bemused expression. "What? Do I have something on my—"

"Your underwear says 'Tuesday.' "

"Oh." She looks down to confirm. "There's a rainbow on them, though. They're on-theme."

"You can't just walk around like that—wearing the wrong day."

"You’re so right," she says, with a hint of a smile, stepping in between his legs. Rey reaches for his hands, guiding them to the slightly worn elastic waistband around her hips. They pull it down together. 

"Leave the socks on," he adds, as she steps out of the underwear. 

He rises from the bed, backing her up toward the wall. Her fingers go for the button on the waistband of his black jeans like they have a mind of their own. 

Her other hand finds purchase against something that feels like a decorative wall shelf. She grips the edge behind her back as he covers her breasts with this hands and lowers his head to kiss her, slow and deep. 

His hands move up across her clavicle, thumbs meeting at the base of her throat, and she arches her back, hungry for more. His fingers slide up her neck, just beneath her ears and she feels dizzy and wet with his tongue in her mouth and his hands just— 

There’s an insistent knock that rattles the door, which doesn't have a lock on it—apparently, Ben's grandfather didn't place a lot of value on personal privacy. They freeze.

" _Hey_ ," shouts Poe. " _You need to lend us some clothes, we can't get into an Uber in what we had on. Or in towels. Probably_."

"If we ignore them, maybe they'll just go away," Ben whispers, keeping both hands where they are. She exhales unsteadily. 

He runs his forefinger down her sternum to her belly. And below. 

She looks at the door handle as he puts his mouth to her ear.

"Describe, in detail, how you couldn't stop thinking about me."

His finger definitely lingers. And then it starts to rove. 

_God, yes, more of this_. 

"I—" He palms her asscheek with his other hand and pulls her closer. 

"Tell me."

“You're—you're distracting me."

There's another pounding on the door—louder this time. 

"Fuck," he mutters, his face twisting up in aggravation. "Don't move."

Ben walks over to the wardrobe and slides open the mirrored door, rummaging through a few drawers. 

He opens the door just enough to stick his arm through and silently hands Poe a stack of items in various shades of black, before closing the door again, with a loud exhale. 

“You’re being very patient,” Rey says, "considering."

She reaches for his hand and pulls him back over. 

“No one has ever described me as ‘patient.’”

She intertwines their fingers.

“You waited for me.” His hand is warm against hers as she stands on her toes to kiss him again. “That’s something. I don't think anyone's waited for _me_ before.” 

He brings his other hand up to her face, touching her lips with the tips of his fingers, letting her brush against them, sliding one in her mouth. 

She rolls her tongue against it before sucking, gently at first, and then a bit harder. Her heart races as she watches his face. The way they can undo each other like this is— 

There’s another round of hammering against the door and Ben lifts his head indignantly, breathing heavily.

" _What in bloody hell is this?_ " Hux shrieks. " _It's utter shit. I can't put this on."_ He pounds at the door again. _"Give me something from AEANCE, I know you have it._ ”

They wait for another second or two, Ben watching the door out of the corner of his eye. When it appears that Hux's tantrum has subsided, Ben sticks a second finger in her mouth and she moans softly, breath hitching. He runs his mouth up her shoulder, nibbling and sucking. The way she's death-gripping this decorative shelf, she silently prays that it's been mounted with wall anchors. 

" _So, there's a surge right now with the rain and the parade_ ," Poe yells. " _So CNN's sending a car service, but with the closed roads, they said it'll take about an hour, so we'll just chill in the living room._ "

"Time's up," Ben shouts, lifting his head. "You can wait downstairs by the mailboxes."

" _My blood sugar is crashing! Tell him about my protein schedule._ " 

" _We're just gonna rummage around in the fridge for something to eat, okay?_ " Poe adds. 

Rey feels Ben's muscle tension increase with every additional aggravation. He takes his fingers back, breathing hard.

" _I need a takeaway_ ," Hux whines. " _Does Morimoto deliver to this neighborhood?_ "

Ben looks like he's about to combust. 

"Should we just deal with them and be done with it?” Rey asks. 

Ben exhales loudly and rubs his forehead.

“They’re not leaving on their own.” 

“Do you think you can get rid of them in the next ten minutes? I ran a mile in ninety degree heat, so I would kinda love to take a shower.” 

"I can do it in the next thirty seconds.” He skims his fingers over the marks he’s just left on her shoulder. “And join you." 

“I like the confidence.”

“I like the incentive.”

“Well, I don’t believe in the profit motive." She rubs her hand against the still half-done fly of his jeans. "Bread and roses, baby. ‘To each according to his need.’ ” 

“I like this new liberal conversion tactic.” He grins and slaps her lightly on the ass, before stepping away to find a fresh shirt from his closet. 

“Come to the dark side, Ben.” She picks up her towel from the floor. “We have pussy.”

“Get in the shower, Karl Marx," he grumbles. "And don't even think about messing around with the handheld sprayer before I get in there. I'll know.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey doesn't hear any voices when she turns off the shower after luxuriating for a full fifteen minutes. 

Pulling open the bathroom door, she takes two steps down the hallway, before her nose catches another scent: food. She inhales. _Butter, toasted bread, melted cheese_.

She hurries down the hall, stopping just shy of the corner, stifling a gasp at the boner-killing sight of Poe and Hux sitting on the sofa, munching on sandwiches, wearing Ben’s t-shirts. 

_God-fucking-dammit_ , that's supposed to be _her_ on the couch.

She peeks over to the kitchen, where Ben is standing in front of the stove, spatula in hand. He's wearing a pair of sweatpants that are cut in such a way that Rey can tell they cost over one hundred dollars. And no shirt. 

Did he... _remove it_? Did he take off his shirt to make grilled cheese sandwiches?

Holding her breath, she walks slowly backward to the bedroom, careful not to make the floorboards creak. She finds her phone on top of the duvet. 

Ben Swolo  
  
**Today** 2:40 PM  
**Rey:** What happened?  
  
You were supposed to get rid of them!  
  
**Ben:** I feel like a divorced dad trying to please his two ungrateful sons who hate him.   
  
**Rey:** Is that why you took your shirt off?  
  
Because they're never going to leave now.  
  
I’m 100% sure this is spank material for at least one of them.  
  
**Ben:** It's fucking hot by the stove.   
  
**Rey:** Different tactic?  
  
**Ben:** I’m open to suggestions.   
  
**Rey:** Being quiet didn’t work.  
  
So, maybe the opposite?  
  
Noise. Scare them away.  
  
**Ben:** What did you have in mind?  
  
Be specific.   
  
**Rey sends: Keanu going down on a lady GIF**

 

The bedroom door swings open with an audible _whoosh_. He probably couldn’t have gotten there faster had he teleported. 

“You said to be specific," she points out.

He’s slightly out of breath, maybe from sprinting from the kitchen. Maybe for other reasons. 

“They’re watching TV out there.” He shuts the door behind him.

She turns toward the mirror on the closet door and squeezes the towel around the ends of her hair. 

“ _Ben! What are you_ doing?” she shouts, pausing to give him a mischievous look. “ _They’re gonna hear!_ ”

He comes up behind her, taking the towel out of her hands. 

"Very convincing," he says, into her ear, before dropping the towel on the floor. “Are you putting on a show for them or for me?”

“Get on the bed,” she says quietly, with a little smile, turning around to give his chest a little push. He raises his eyebrows, but does as he’s told. “On your back.” She takes a big breath in and yells, “ _Will you show me how this thing works? Do I just, like,_ strap it on _?_ ” She climbs onto the bed after him. " _Is that what the_ baby oil _is for?!_ " 

"Okay, that's enough," Ben insists, sitting up slightly. "I thought you were just going to, I don’t know— _moan_ or something." 

"I'm getting their attention."

"By giving them ammunition to torture me later?" Ben grabs her arm and murmurs, "What do I have to do to get you to shut up?” 

Rey grins and tosses the pillows aside. 

“Actually, I’ll be shutting _you_ up.” She pushes him down again and swings her right leg over his head. "Is this okay? Too much?"

"You're gonna come all over my face, Rey." His tone is somehow both awestruck and resolute and that is absolutely all she needs to hear.

She nods rapidly and sits up on her knees, just hovering above his chin. _Is this a new headboard_? Because slats come in handy. He grabs her hips and pulls her up so that her knees are settled just about in line with his ears, and _fuck yes this is happening_. 

" _You’re so big. You’re the_ BIGGEST BOY _!_ "

"The what?" he stage whispers.

"I think Hux has a size kink." She clears her throat. " _You're like nine feet tall and I want you to step on my neck!_ " 

“You’re supposed to be irritating them, not turning them on!”

She sits up higher on her knees and puts her ear to the wall. It's hard to discern, but the volume of the TV in the living room seems to _lower_ a tick or two. 

" _I want you to run me over with your car!_ "

" _This_ is your best stuff?” he whispers, with a laugh. 

She looks down at him and quirks an eyebrow.

"Give me some inspiration, then."

Taking a deep breath, she places her left hand behind her on his chest and weaves her right through his hair. 

She lets his hands guide her hips down to a comfortable position just brushing his nose, his mouth, and then lets her lower a little further down. Further, further...until she meets just the right amount of resistance. 

_Yes_. 

The first sound she makes is little more than a heavy, resonant exhale, as she feels his tongue pressing just above her clit. It’s nothing they could hear in the other room; it’s just for Ben. She lowers down just a little bit more, easing into it.

The second sound is louder—still breathy, but with an actual tone and a falling arc, like some object had just slipped out of her hand. She adjusts her weight back and forth on her knees, changing the angles, letting her head drop forward. _God_. _Yes_. 

"Mmmmm," she hums, tugging at his hair, feeling his warm breath against her and lifting up a little bit to give him some literal breathing room.

But he pulls back down on her hips, almost grinding her against his mouth. 

Her lips part in surprise, but the words don't come out right—just indistinct vowels and sharp consonants that don't match—breathy and desperate. 

Ben's fingers dig into her hips, like a sign of approval, as he swipes his tongue flat against her. Each stroke is like the lick of a flame, growing in intensity each time. 

“Aaaahhhh.” _Breath._ “Oh God.” _Breath._ “Shit.” She tries to think of more ridiculous thirsty phrases to shout through the wall, but her mind is like a freshly opened, untitled Google doc. "—Fuh-ah-fffuuuuck," is all she manages to get out. 

" _Fuck me, what is she—_ " Hux's muffled voice exclaims from the other room.

There's a loud shushing. 

" _Rey?_ " Poe's voice calls out, cautiously, like he might actually receive an answer. " _This is awkward._ "

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Rey closes her fist and bangs against the drywall. "—keep going—"

He doesn't need telling twice. Or even once, really.

" _We can hear you, twats!_ "

His tongue nudges repeatedly at her clit like a tiny hammer tapping a nail _just_ into place, coaxing little involuntary noises from her throat.

_Yes yes yes holy shit yesyesyes._

There’s still some hushed bickering from the other side of the wall.

" _He's got the better tits, between the two of them_."

" _Well he is the 'biggest boy.'_ " 

She squirms and he grips harder around her hips, holding her still, at his desired angle, and brushes his lips over her clit. The ridiculous situation, the insulting remarks from Hux, Poe's laughter—they all dissolve into the background. 

"Oh God. Please. Just—just, just…" She grabs the headboard, leaning forward slightly. "More—suck—"

He waits for just a second, before giving her exactly what she wants in little controlled doses, just enough, but not quite—

She cries out several decibels higher, pushing the top of the headboard against the wall, leaving a dark scratch and very much not giving a damn about the damage or whether Hux and Poe are currently making a hasty exit or listening intently. 

"Fuck, _yes! Please—_ " 

Ben probably knows he could end it any moment, which is somehow both aggravating and really fucking exciting. He’s so good at that—understanding just how much she can take, pressing in harder, faster...and then backing off.

God, he really does _everything_ with a sense of dedication and attention to detail. It doesn’t even matter that it started as a joke.

Her knees clamp like a vise around his head and she knows she's pulling too hard on his hair, but the tension in her core won't break and her thighs are shaking, and he's somehow both pushing her steadily closer to the edge and delaying it.

"Ben, make me come. Make me come like this."

It's like she's hanging from a rope and he's casually sawing away at the fibers with a knife, letting her dangle by a strand, before just... _just...JUST_ —

"Aaahhhh, _hhhhnhh_ , shit _shit SHIIIIIT!_ "

A surge of euphoria crashes through her core and she yanks hard on his hair, letting it course through her body and slowly recede. 

Blinking open her eyes, she lets go of the headboard, finding an angry red mark pressed into her palm. 

“Oh my fucking God,” she says, when her mind starts becomes semi-functional again. She swings her left leg over his chest to meet her right, before collapsing next to him. “Are you okay?” she asks, breathing hard. 

“Are _you_?”

There’s a pounding on the wall behind them that's forceful enough to shake the bed frame.

“ _You’re disgusting, Solo. Just the_ worst _host. Truly._ ”

Ben reaches over and smooths her hair away from her face. She closes her eyes, enjoying the intimacy of it. 

“They're still here?" Rey mumbles. "After that?”

“ _That’s how you treat guests in your home? Subjecting them to a sickening demonstration of whatever the fuck that was? On_ Pride _? Bloody shameful._ ”

“I can’t believe I made them fucking sandwiches.”

"Oh God, I really _would_ let you step on my neck for a sandwich.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Private  
  
**Hux:** Have my suit cleaned and delivered to my apartment.  
  
Don’t bother asking for the location of Andy’s after party.  
  
You absolute cunt.  
  


Dameron  
  
**Poe:** Car’s here.  
  
You two are cute.   
  
Like a noisy, scruffy little rabbit and the biggest boy rabbit.   
  
Changing your contact name to “Baby Oil”   
  
Careful. It gets everywhere.  
  


“See? My strategy _did_ work,” Rey points out, handing his phone back. "They're leaving."

"I've never been prouder."

He actually _is_ very proud of the way her heart is still thundering in her chest. The way she smells like his shower gel, but layered over the essence of her own skin. The sounds she makes—the fucking noises he can draw out of her. God, to just be buried in her like that—all five senses sparking in response to her body. No one else has ever done that with him. To him? On him? 

The elevator dings, and Ben listens for confirmation that Hux and Poe are headed down to the ground floor. 

Which means they can get up, open the bedroom door, roam freely around the apartment, maybe put Rey’s clothes in the dryer, while she eats a grilled cheese sandwich. Or two. 

But he knows they’re not going to do any of those things right now. 

For starters, he’s hard as a fucking rock. She’s naked, right up against him, lazily tracing lines up and down his torso, stopping just short of the waistband of his sweatpants. 

“Are you teasing or waiting for an invitation?” he asks, his eyes following her fingers. 

“Permission to come aboard, Sir?”

“Granted.”

It’s cute banter, and at any other time, they'd probably keep going with it. But there’s a seriousness to the way she pushes her hair away from her face as she sits up on her knees again, running her hands down his chest one last time before she tugs at the drawstring of his Todd Snyder joggers. 

Not that he’d expected her to rip into him. 

It's just that she strips the pants off so slowly—almost carefully. He can’t really remember something like this happening before—another person being so...methodical. 

Gentle. 

No one ever thinks they need to be gentle with him. 

Tossing the pants over the foot of the bed, she runs her nails up his legs, at the same controlled pace, making her way up to his groin. His cock twitches.

There’s something different about it. Maybe it’s that she’s looking in his eyes, instead of literally any other direction. If the physical sensation of her nails on his skin wasn’t so visceral, the whole thing could be mistaken for a fantasy from six months ago. 

Or maybe it’s that he feels a little helpless, a little vulnerable, as she climbs on top of him, straddling his hips, taking his cock in her hand, rubbing her thumb over the head and spreading the precum. 

“Is this good?” she asks. “Can I—”

“It’s good, Rey.” He sits up a bit on his elbows, wanting to see as much as possible as she guides him inside. But the combination of the visual and the physical is just slightly overwhelming, so he lies back, moving a pillow behind his head, before closing his eyes at the heat and tightness, for fear of just exploding immediately. He feels her slowly sink all the way down— _so wet, she's so fucking wet_ —breathing in a little gasping noise, until her ass meets the tops of his thighs. "So good. Perfect."

The female refractory period is truly an amazing thing.

“Touch me,” she says softly.

He opens his eyes. She's not doing anything except looking fucking radiant against the light from the antique floor lamp behind her in the corner, but it's still bordering on _too much_. 

“Just—don’t move yet—” 

He lets himself adjust to her warmth and weight on his hips. Adjust to someone _wanting_ him instead of tolerating him. 

“I'm not moving—I need...will you touch me? Please.” 

She's _asking for this_. 

His fingers seem to roam of their own volition—moving steadily up her thighs, around the smooth curve of her waist, over the sheen of sweat on her lower back. 

“Your hands.” Her chest expands under his touch as she breathes in deeply. “God, I dreamed about your hands.”

The words sound like a foreign language he once learned and barely remembers.

There’s a familiar urge rising in him—to press on it, draw out more details, force out the truth out from under her usual reticence.

“I listened to your voice and thought about this,” she continues. He moves his fingers to the underside of her left breast, small and perfect. Something just under her skin almost seems to thrum. “You touching me. Like this...”

God, he could listen to this confession forever. 

He’s about to tell her it’s okay to move— _that he needs her to move now_ —when she slowly rolls her hips against him, as if she intuitively knows it’s the right time. 

_Fuuuuuuuck_. She’s tight. So fucking tight and squeezing around him and his brain obviously meanders into the minefield of _who else did she fuck when she was away_? and then stumbles out again.

Because whoever it was, she’d been thinking about one person. Wanting one person. 

_Me._

He rubs his thumb against her nipple, watching it stiffen before tweaking it lightly and making her whine. 

“I thought about feeling you inside me,” she says, tilting her head to the side and placing a hand on his chest for leverage as she moves up and down on his cock. The fingers of his left hand press into her hip, subtly guiding her movement.

A quiet “fuck,” is all he’s able to verbally contribute to the conversation. His mind is somehow both blank and screaming.

“You have this way of looking at me—you _see_ _me_. It's like you see me in this way that—" her breath catches "— _fuck, aahh_ —” 

He tries to mentally snapshot every little unfiltered reaction like that—each tiny quirk of her mouth, or furrowed brow, or muscle straining and relaxing. Like he can't quite let himself trust that this is happening again. Like no reassurance will be enough until she proves it. Until she actually comes back. Or just doesn't leave. 

"—no one else ever..." she mumbles, losing her words, as he pulls again at her nipple and a tiny agitated sigh escapes her mouth.

Her hand presses harder against his chest as she sinks down again, grinding herself on him, taking him in deeper. He starts to feel himself slipping—

 _Breathe slowly._ Fuck, it's just so much easier to regulate when he's on top. When he has more control and they're not at each other's mercy like this. 

“Don’t stop, Rey.” He’s not sure if he means her movements or the way she’s babbling things he’s wanted to hear forever. 

She clenches around him, impossibly tight, moaning louder, guiding his hand from her breast down to her clit. Her palm is warm against the back of his hand, as she shows him exactly how wet she is, how she wants to be touched. 

"Look at me," she says, and he realizes he's had his eyes closed for the last few seconds. "I want to show you everything. What you do to me."

There's this idea of her that exists in his mind: where she's some kind of enigma, where the passcodes are always off by one number, where she almost opens up to him, but not quite.

He blinks against the light. Her head drops back, exposing her throat. She's not being coy about anything now—just taking exactly what she needs. Reading him like a fucking book. Giving him what he wants before he can ask for it. 

He could try to flip them over. Seize control. Make her regret things. Show her everything she missed. 

But he doesn't. 

Because she doesn't need to be held down or scolded or made to beg for it. He's not going to hide her discarded clothes to make her stay this time. 

So he lets himself be pinned to the mattress, between her thighs, looking up at her like she's some kind of goddess, backlit in a way that resembles the kind of gauzy Instagram filter that other people use.

"God, your cock is fucking perfect.” He thinks she says that, but fantasy and reality are crashing together in a way that gives every word and image a dreamlike tinge, fuzzy around the edges. 

But it _is_ real because he can _feel_ it. He can feel the tension in her pulling him in further and needing more. Her body is so fucking greedy, but so is his. He holds her hip tightly as he thrusts up a bit faster, finding a combination of angle and friction that makes her cry out. 

“Oh god. Ben. Oh _god_.” _Any second. Any fucking second._ He moves his fingers rapidly against her clit and studies her face, knowing she's so close, watching her self-control dwindle a little more with each passing moment. _Yes. Yes yes yes, come on, come for me. Just for me._ “Oh shit, oh _ohh, ahh hhnghhh._ Fuck me. Fuck me. _Fuck me, Ben. God, FUCK ME._ "

It takes one hundred percent of his mental and physical fortitude not to slip over the edge with her as her body shudders and she pulses around his cock. Or maybe it's the third stroke of good luck he's had today.

"Come here," he says when he feels her go limp. He gently guides her torso down so that her forearms rest on his chest, and tangles his hand through her hair, pulling her into a kiss. "We can stop," he murmurs, stroking the back of her head.

"Just—just give me a second. I'm dizzy and I think my ears popped."

"It's okay—"

"This is my first sex in six months that doesn't involve purple silicone. I don't want to stop."

It takes a few seconds to process that information, but he, at least, attempts to cover his surprise. 

"Of course." He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and runs his other hand up and down her back, in what he hopes is a soothing gesture. 

She lowers her head just enough to kiss him again, her hair flopping right back down over the side of both of their faces. 

"This kind of doesn't feel real," she says, planting her right hand on the mattress beside his shoulder for balance. 

“I promise I’m not one of your dream projections.”

She caresses his cheek with the other hand, as she starts to move her hips against him, finding an easy rhythm. 

“If I had dream sex like this, I’d never get out of bed.”

He reaches behind her neck, gathering up her hair loosely, getting it out of her face so she can see. 

“I don't want you to get out of bed." 

They keep their faces close, eyes locked on each other, intimate and soft. Her breasts just barely graze his chest each time she draws upward. 

"God, I love you," he says, pulling his head back for a moment. "I can't fucking help it."

"You don't need to help it." 

She slips her tongue between his lips and moans into his mouth as his hands rove down her back. He presses the pads of his fingers into the roundest part of her ass and moves her up and down his length at a speed that's bound to make him come too fast. 

_Fuckingtakeityes fuck fuck._

He grabs her left wrist, pulling her forearm behind her back, seizing a little more control. 

"Tell me again."

"You're the biggest boy!"

She laughs as he tugs on her arm, pulling it tighter behind her back.

"I love you, Ben." He lets her wrist go and slides his hand up between her shoulder blades, almost to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, so their foreheads touch. 

He should probably be embarrassed at the way his heart quietly combusts in his fucking chest when she says so earnestly—like a promise. But it's been forever since he felt— _what is this?_ —actual _joy_? Even if it turns out to be to good to be true in ten minutes, it's still the purest fucking thing he's experienced in years.

"Don't fucking stop," he says, even though he's the one pushing her down on his cock, at a steadily faster pace. 

"I don't plan on it."

_Fuckingshitgoddamnfuckgonnacumfuckfuck._

"I'm gonna come inside you." He hears the frantic energy—the _urgency_ —in his tone. Right on the verge. So fucking close to—

"I wanted this. I wanted you."

Maybe it's hearing the words, or the way she's tensing around him, or the increasingly frenzied quality of her moans, but everything tightens until he can only feel one thing. Like the rest of his body—brain, included—doesn't even exist. Just a single burst of pure, perfect sensation and the rush of release. 

That part is over too soon. 

But she collapses next to him, burying her face in the crook of his neck, tangling their legs together. The sound of her heavy, exhausted breathing is like music against the shell of his ear. 

And this part can last forever. 

"Hold me," she says, nudging her body a little closer. "And don't give me any shit about being held after sex." He chuckles softly as he snakes his left arm under her and pulls her in, rolling onto his side so they can face each other. "This is for your benefit only."

"Obviously." 

He tucks her head under his chin and they listen to the storm outside for what seems like a long time, but probably isn't. 

"Can I ask you a question?" He runs his fingers through her hair, the familiar scent of his own hair product coating the delicate strands.

She sighs.

"Yes, I haven't—"

"Why did you get your nose pierced?"

"—gotten laid in six months."

"I heard you the first time," he says, after a beat. "The purple silicone?"

"Oh." She squirms a tiny bit. "Do you hate the nose ring?" she asks, putting her finger to the side of her nose, like she's confirming it's still there. "I figured you'd hate it."

"Were you trying to annoy me from a thousand miles away?"

"Yes, I put a hole through my nose because I wanted to annoy a man a thousand miles away who I thought I would never see again." She rolls over onto her back. "It felt kinda good, actually. Destructive, but not permanent."

"I guess I primarily put holes through walls." His eyes drift down to her breasts and he catches himself wondering if she'd considered other piercing locations.

"Well I didn't have any walls to attack with a sledgehammer this time. Landlords usually frown upon that kind of thing."

"That's one advantage of being a homeowner." He circles her left nipple with his thumb.

"Actually it was my boss's idea. I have to cultivate a persona, now that I'm taking on more of a spokesperson role. 'Youthful and mysterious.' We have someone shooting a Netflix documentary and I needed a ‘thing’ so that I could be a 'meme-able character.' "

"Your boss made you get a nose ring."

"She's the most brilliant woman I've ever met." Something about the phrasing catches in his ear. Ben stops moving his thumb. "I would have gotten a face tattoo if she'd suggested it. I'm pretty sure Beto's outreach coordinator already did that."

He wishes— _really wishes_ —his mind wouldn't go there, but the question just pops out. 

"Are you...attracted to her?"

Rey jerks an inch or two back from him.

"Are you fucking serious?" She indignantly smacks the back of her hand against his chest. 

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, that was—”

"Besides the fact that _she’s my boss_ , it's a terrible idea to fuck around during a campaign. It's so...insular. It always comes back to bite you in the ass. Sometimes literally." She clears her throat. "What about you?"

"I—"

"Because if you're currently involved with someone—" there's a slight undercurrent of trepidation in her tone "—you probably should have mentioned that an hour ago." 

"Not currently, no. I have dated a few people," he says, carefully. "And I didn't think that you were—"

"Yeah, I didn't expect...I'm—I'm glad you moved on, in some way."

"I wouldn't call it 'moving on,' " he clarifies. "More like, reminding myself why I'm single." He pauses. "I'm sorry, but I—you really didn't...there wasn't anyone this entire time? I'm just—" He wants to say _shocked_ , but he stops himself.

"You think there's no way I didn't fuck my boss and like ten other randos in the time I've been gone?"

"That's _not_ what I said."

"I've been kind of _busy_ , you know." 

"I know you have."

"There's nothing like prolonged isolation from all the people you care about in the world, while under the most intense pressure of your life, to make you realize what you're actually looking for.”

He takes a breath.

“What are you looking for?”

“I want someone to make me meow." He rolls his eyes. "Just a really spectacular, mind-blowing deep dicking. From someone who actually cares about me." She slides an inch closer to him, relaxing back down onto the pillows. "Who I want to hang out with after. Like, all day. Who reads to me at night." He leans on his elbow, looking over her. "Who’s legally obligated to give me his chicken noodle soup—”

“Matzo ball.”

“—when I need it.” He intertwines his right hand with her left. “Who—who loves me. The kind of love that makes single people shake their heads and roll their eyes because we’re holding hands at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The kind of thing I don’t think I ever let myself believe in.” She looks up at him. “But you did. You saw it.”

“Rey—” 

“There's something here that I haven't found with anyone else. _Ever_. I don't want to be thinking about that for the rest of my life. Knowing that if I just took that chance—" 

He leans down and interrupts her with a kiss. For once, he doesn’t need to hear the rest of the words. He just knows. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The rain doesn't let up as the afternoon gradually crossfades into the evening. There's no compelling reason to leave the apartment, because for Rey, the essentials are available indoors: Ben and food. 

So, for the second time today, he makes a grilled cheese sandwich for a brat wearing one of his t-shirts. Only this time, he seems _much_ happier to oblige his guest. 

Maybe the fact that she’s wearing a pair of his stupidly fancy tube socks and no underwear has something to do with it. 

Rey occupies herself by poking around the loft, taking note of which things have remained (the sofa, a bookshelf, the VCR on the console beneath the TV, and—she notes with _interest_ —the Bowflex) and the things that haven't (the drafting table she'd fixed and cleaned, the sledgehammer holes in the wall). 

It’s been awhile since she’s been at this stage of things with another person (only one other time, really), but she knows from TV and movies that people who are happy and in love put on background music when one of them cooks something. And since she doesn't have the mental bandwidth to figure out how to operate Ben's hand-me-down stereo system—the one he hacked together with exposed red wire—she digs through the cassettes next to the boombox (also not thrown out), pulls one out at random, and pops it in the tape deck with a satisfying click. It turns out to be the tail end of that tear-inducing Stevie Wonder song from _High Fidelity_. 

"Is this okay?" she asks, walking over to the kitchen. "Or did you want me to go down to the street and hold the boombox up over my head?"

"Maybe if it was a Han apology tape," he says, sinking a knife into a stick of Kerrygold butter. "Leia made this one. We used to listen to it on roadtrips. I’m hundred percent certain the next song is Fleetwood Mac." 

Rey hovers behind him at the stove, watching him cut the bread into perfectly uniform slices when “Hold Me” abruptly interrupts the fade out of the previous song. He hands her a piece that starts wide and ends too thin. It's good bread. 

"Pain D'Avignon," he tells her. "Essex Street Market is a fucking nightmare on a Saturday, but they do a fantastic sourdough."

"What is this sorcery?" she asks, grabbing a jar of something that looks like jam by the side of the stove.

"Hot pepper jelly."

"On grilled cheese? You _are_ a monster."

"I should really be making these with with Epoisses," he says, dropping the pat of butter into the pan, "but I had a feeling you might want something more traditional. How do you feel about Gruyere?"

" _Gruyere_ is fun to say."

"But will you eat it?"

"I eat everything. And I'm positive you don't have the actual best man for the job in your fridge, which is, of course, American processed cheese food."

"Gruyere it is."

She picks up a spatula and takes a few experimental swings with it, before playfully swatting him on the butt, just as he's swirling the butter in the hot pan. He jerks forward in surprise. 

"What the fuck, Rey? That's so dangerous! Just—" he breathes out, flustered, like he needs to reset his hair trigger impulse "—not by the stove." He turns back to his sandwich preparations. 

"You can just tell me you want to be spanked with it later, Baby Oil. No need to yell." 

He shakes his head and she's convinced he's barely suppressing a smile.

There’s too much pent up energy inside her to just sit and wait, so she pads across the wooden floor to the other side of the loft. Poe had mentioned that they'd built a space for recording, but she can see now that they've repurposed Han's room. She peeks her head inside, flipping on the light. 

Ben must've spent a small fortune on black foam because the walls are covered in the stuff. It's a pretty decent-looking microphone setup with a boom arm and shock mounts with integrated pop shields. She's learned a bit about these things over the past few months.

"How's the podcast going?" she half-shouts. "You've been getting some good press."

He focuses more attention than necessary on slicing the Gruyere.

"We're trying to record some evergreen episodes now before Dameron leaves. And then...I don't know." Rey hops up to sit on the kitchen table, swinging her legs to release some of the restlessness. "Actually I'm…" He trails off and she's not sure if it's because he doesn't want to talk about this or he really does.

"You're…?"

"I haven’t told anyone this, but I'm considering finishing my doctorate. Officially." 

"You are?" She doesn't mean to sound quite that surprised. "You can do that? I mean, you _want_ to do it?"

Rey hears the first sandwich sizzle in the pan and her mouth waters. 

"Well, it's not—" Ben turns around from the stove and his expression cycles between indignation and titillation. "What are you—there are _four chairs_ _right there_ and you're sitting your ass on the tabletop I _just_ cleaned? Get off."

She feels a frisson of excitement low in her belly. 

"Make me." 

He takes a few steps toward the table, raising his eyebrows. 

"Make you what?"

She looks him in the eye, still kicking her legs, and using a measured tone.

"Make me get off."

He takes another step closer, and she’s convinced he smiles for half a second, before reaching out to grab her right ankle when she swings it forward. Her core is definitely throbbing now. 

"Do I need to get the spatula?" He places his other hand between her breasts and pushes until she's lying back on the tabletop. "Or the _hairbrush_?" 

Over her heaving chest, she sees him tug down the waistband of his pants. _These fancy sweatpants are really having A Day_. 

"I'll take the hairbrush for a thousand, Alex," she says, heart racing. 

His nostrils flare as he grabs under her left thigh, and with a leg in each hand, pulls her just a bit roughly over the edge of the table. 

_Yesyesyesyes_.

"God, this table really is the perfect height," he mutters, resting her legs on his shoulders and guiding himself inside her in one slow stroke. 

She takes a breath in and grips the edges of the table as he pulls out almost all the way before rocking back into her with a grunt. He doesn't pause for either of them to get used to anything this time and _Jesus fucking Christ_ he fills her up.

"You have four minutes until the sandwiches burn," he says, splaying his right hand below her belly button and pressing down as he thrusts again. 

She's certain the entire table moves back an inch as she mentally calculates how many orgasms a person can have within that time frame. 

Eight minutes later, Rey bites into a sandwich that's perfectly golden on one side and completely charred on the other. She doesn't mind a bit. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

" _Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The end._ "

Ben hears the tiniest possible sigh leave Rey's mouth, but he doesn't comment on it. They watch Peter Falk snap the book shut and urge Fred Savage to get some sleep. 

" _Grandpa? Maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow_."

" _As you wish…_ "

The screen fades to black before the love theme kicks in and _Directed by Rob Reiner_ pops up in a garish, 1980s blue over a pastoral wide shot. 

Rey breathes out—a deep, satisfying-sounding exhale that he can feel against his own chest.

"What did you think?" he asks.

She watches the screen and bites her lip before relaxing into a smile.

"I liked it." 

"I knew you would."

"Well, you did say that it's 'a perfect fucking movie' like twelve times." 

"It has respect for the fantasy genre while it subverts the tropes," he explains. "And I know you don't think you're a romantic, but I just watched you swoon. I finally know what swooning actually looks like."

"And here I assumed it was a thinly veiled call-out for my read-aloud kink."

"I bet you were getting all excited over Grandpa's reading voice," he says, running his hand around her hip and between her thighs. 

The timer on the washing machine rings from outside the bedroom door, and she squirms out of his grasp. 

"Hey, big coincidence here." She picks up her phone from the bedside table. "Hux just texted to ask 'Who has bigger tits, Ben or Andre the Giant?' "

“Get the fuck out of my bed," he says, swatting her on the butt, as she throws off the sheets and slides to the edge of the bed.

"Yours are definitely shinier." 

He tosses a pillow at her. 

"Elevator's down the hall to the left. Have a nice life.” 

She flings it back at him and walks to the door, typing something on her phone. 

“Just gonna throw my clothes in the dryer, and I'll be out of your way forever!"

When he hears the creak of the dryer door open, the sense of deja vu starts to bloom in Ben's anxious brain. Because she needs to leave the apartment tomorrow, dressed in her own clothes. And he doesn't like the way that last sarcastic line is still ringing in his ears like there could be a sliver of truth in it.

His throat feels tight as he listens to her crank the dial clockwise and hit the START button. 

"So," she says, reappearing at the door, "I need to get my bag from Rose and Finn's place before eight tomorrow." 

"That's...early."

He knows his face is betraying his attempts to be stoic, because Rey bites her lip and turns her phone over and over in her hands as she walks back over to her side of the bed.

"Maybe you can walk me over to the bagel cart on my way to the train," she offers.

He nods, but the bagel cart's not nearly good enough. And he doesn't want to keep talking about her leaving first thing, going to the airport, and flying off to—wherever. _Away._

"Come back to bed," he says, peeling back the covers. Rey curls up next to him, burying her head in his chest, almost rubbing her face against his t-shirt.

He hears a long, deep inhale.

"Are you—are you smelling me?"

She looks up, with a slight hint of embarrassment. 

"I like it. Your smell."

"My cologne?"

"No, not your 'magical twilight hour in the burning desert' perfume. I mean, like, your _actual_ smell. Your shirts have the perfect amount, like, right near the armpits. Is that gross? I wish I could just, like, take a little hit every time I feel sad."

"What do you have to feel sad about?" he asks, regretting it immediately.

She pulls her head back. 

"I got the sense you didn't want to talk about it tonight."

"I don't. I don't want to worry about you leaving tomorrow or the immediate future or think about where you'll be and when you're coming back. If you're—"

"I'm coming back, Ben." It irks him, the way she sounds like Han sometimes. He had probably meant to come back, too. Every time. "We'll figure it out."

He nods, grinding his jaw again. 

"We can exchange pictures of our tits," she says, poking at his chest. "Since yours are apparently so much better than mine." 

"I disagree. But just to confirm—" he pulls at the back of shirt she'd put on— _his t-shirt_ —and she lets him lift it over her head with a tiny exasperated sigh "—yeah, I definitely still disagree." 

"And you can call me up and read to me when I'm about to go to sleep."

"As you wish."

She smiles. "Nice line. What are you reading now?"

He leans over to his nightstand and retrieves a paperback, handing it over for her to examine. 

"I definitely don't need to hear the last page of this," she says, glancing at the back cover of _Neo-Existentialism_ by Markus Gabriel. 

"He's such a hack," he says, with a sigh, placing the book back on the nightstand. "I'm hate-reading it, obviously." 

" _Obviously_ ," Rey agrees, biting back a smile.

But Ben suddenly sits up, remembering a book he hasn't cracked open in years. 

"Wait—I have something else," he says, heading out of the room, down the hall, and over to the shelf where he keeps a modest stack of books that aren't in storage bins. 

When he comes back into the room, Rey is lying on her left side, facing the window, like she's offering to be the little spoon. Maybe it's her version of that gesture where a cat cautiously permits you to rub its underside. 

Settling in behind her, he opens to the last page—it's an old paperback, so it actually _is_ the last page for once—and slides his left arm underneath and around her, virtually guaranteeing that it will fall asleep. But he needs his right hand for the book, so the feeling in his left arm will need to be sacrificed. 

He clears his throat and begins:

" _That's Morgenstern's ending, a 'Lady or the Tiger?'-type effect. Now, he was a satirist, so he left it that way, and my father was, I guess I realized too late, a romantic, so he ended it another way._ "

"What's this from?"

" _Well, I'm an abridger, so I'm entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself. But, for me, I say,_ " he pauses for a beat," _yes it was. And yes, they got away. And got their strength back and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs._ "

"Ben? I don't understand. What book is this?" 

He's tempted to end it there, on an uplifting note, but there's more on the page and he can't just leave the words unsaid. 

" _But that doesn't mean I think they had a happy ending either. Because, in my opinion anyway, they squabled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually_ —" Rey turns her head back to try to see the cover, but Ben moves it further toward the right"— _and one day Fezzik lost a fight and some hot-shot kid whipped Inigo with a sword and Westley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdinck maybe being on the trail._ " 

He takes a breath in, before continuing onto the final paragraph:

" _I'm not trying to make this a downer, understand. I mean,_ " he slows down his reading, " _I really do think_ —" he swallows"— _that love is the best thing in the world_ —" pause "— _except for cough drops._ _But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all._ "

He closes the book and tosses it behind him. Rey is quiet for few moments. 

"That's how _The Princess Bride_ ends? The book?" 

"Yeah."

"I don't know how to feel about that—leaving things ambiguous. On a question mark?"

He swallows and leans in, his mouth hovering just over her right ear.

"Change your flight. Don't leave tomorrow." She turns her head almost imperceptibly toward him. "I need things to be different this time and I know—intellectually, I know—it's different. I just—"

"I have a fundraising meeting tomorrow afternoon—"

"Fuck, I know. I know you can't."

"—and I have to be there." She pulls his arm tighter around her and he silently berates himself for already acting like this. 

_But it's not too much to ask for one morning, right?_ To wake up together and eat some fucking eggs and french toast before they get separated by whatever strange luck keeps pushing them together and pulling them apart again?

"If you didn't need to get your bag, what time would you leave?"

"Hmm. Maybe ten?"

It's not much, but it's something.

 

 

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Ben:** I need a favor.  
  
**Kaydel:** I never pass up the opportunity for a life debt.   
  
What can I do for you?  
  
I have a code for a free week of color therapy yoga that I’m dying to share with someone. There's a sweet referral bonus, but I actually think you would LOVE it.  
  
**Ben:** You live in Brooklyn, right? Can you pick up a suitcase from an apartment in Prospect Heights and bring it over to the loft tomorrow on your way to work?  
  
**Kaydel:** You want me to be your drug mule?  
  
**Ben:** What?  
  
**Kaydel:** I’ll do it.  
  
It’ll be great material for my spoken word piece at The Moth.  
  
Have I told you I’m taking storytelling lessons?  
  
**Ben:** No. It's someone's actual suitcase.   
  
**Kaydel:** Okay. 🚨 🚨. Back it up.   
  
Whose suitcase?  
  
Tell me everything.  
  
**Ben:** Is Leia reading your texts?  
  
**Kaydel:** Look, I'm counting on that Christmas bonus.  
  
I have my own startup to bootstrap, you know.  
  
And I'm also very busy tomorrow.   
  
**Ben:** It's Rey's suitcase and I don't want her to go back to Brooklyn to pick it up.   
  
If you bring it, she won't have to rush and I can make her breakfast before she has to leave.   
  
That's why.  
  
**Kaydel:** eye  
  
💃💃💃😻😻🙏🙏.  
  
Um, burying the lede. 💣 WTF.  
  
Can I have some groceries delivered? Maybe a fruit basket?  
  
OMG FLOWERS. 🌹🌹🌹  
  
Let's cover the apartment in flowers before she wakes up.  
  
I have a guy, I'll take care of the whole thing. His aesthetic is "overwhelming, but tasteful."  
  
**Ben:** NO.  
  
No fruit. No flowers. Don't make a big deal out of it.   
  
Just the suitcase.  
  
Please.  
  
It's at Rose Tico's apartment.  
  
**Kaydel:** PAIGE'S SISTER?  
  
God, I am DYING to meet her in person.  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey had said she didn't want him to wait outside with her, because goodbyes are difficult and awkward enough in private, let alone on the street. But he insists on taking the elevator down to the ground with her, even though "she doesn't need any help" maneuvering the suitcase that had arrived early this morning—along with an enormous floral arrangement, a dozen eggs, and a little bottle of Vermont maple syrup—courtesy of a beaming Kaydel. 

"It's not like last time," Rey assures him— _again_ —while waiting for a text from the car service that Kaydel had insisted on sending. "I'm not running away. I'll text you when I get there. I'll text you from the _car_."

"I know." He _does_ know. He just doesn't want her to go. Period.

It doesn't matter why. 

But he doesn't say that, because her job is fucking important. To her, and to the campaign, and possibly— _fuck it, you never know_ —to the Democratic party. Not that he cares about the Democratic Party. He does, however, care about Rey. And Rey cares about the Democratic Party.

"Already doing work?" he asks, as she taps away at her phone. She looks different— _professional_ —in her jersey knit wrap dress, even though she still wobbles a bit on her heels.

"Nope. I'm changing your contact name to 'Biggest Boy.' "

He gives her an exasperated sigh, but he can't help but feel good about having a new ridiculous nickname in her phone. 

"Good idea. I'm changing yours, too." 

He reaches for his own device.

Kaydel Connix  
  
**Kaydel:** You were GLOWING.   
  
**Kaydel sends: Leslie Knope compliment GIF**

He closes the chat and tries to remember how to edit a contact name. 

"Yeah? It's probably time for you to switch it out from 'Rude girl I drove to New York.' What am I going to be? 'Rainbow shorts?' 'Tuesday panties?' 'American processed cheese f—' "

He holds out his phone so she can see the new moniker. 

 

GIRLFRIEND  
  
**Yesterday** 2:41 PM  
Scare them away.  
  
**Ben:** What did you have in mind?  
  
Be specific.   
  
  


She glances from the screen to his face, and he watches her reaction carefully. Because maybe this is _pushing_ again and he can't just leave a good thing alone and let it develop naturally. _Of course not_. And _of course_ her expression is inscrutable.

She doesn't even say anything; she just picks up her phone again and types for second, giving him a momentary flashback to the traumatic New Years Eve 'I'm too scared of this' text. 

He actually braces himself—physically tenses up—when she turns the phone around to show him the screen.

 

BIGGEST BOYFRIEND  
  
**Yesterday** 2:41 PM  
Scare them away.  
  
**Ben:** What did you have in mind?  
  
Be specific.   
  
  


"You get a superlative."

Relief floods his body, followed by a sharp hit of elation. 

She grabs a handful of his shirt and pulls him closer and he doesn't even care that she's stretching out the silky Sea Island Cotton that he'd felt justified the nearly two hundred dollar price tag. Her phone chimes, but she doesn't check it.

"Thanks for the breakfast."

"Anytime." He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. No wonder she usually wears a bun. "Thanks for the sex."

She grins. "Anytime."

He reaches his fingers just under her ears to the back of her neck, smoothing his thumbs over her blushing cheeks. Her eyes are bright and expectant, like she's waiting for him to tilt her head back. 

He will, but not just yet. 

Right now, he just takes in the smooth contours of her face—all the little details that can't be captured by photographs. Like the smattering of freckles. Like the cute little crinkle at the top of her nose that forms when she's squinting in the sunlight. Like the little divot at corner of her mouth that needs to be kissed to be truly appreciated. 

It needs to be kissed now, actually.

Maybe she's confused as to why he grazes his lips against these seemingly random features, but she doesn't ask. A giant black SUV bounces over the cobblestones and pulls to a stop at the curb, but Ben keeps going. 

It's just one of those things in life that other people ask you about ( _"When did you know you'd found your person?"_ ) and your answer isn't satisfying to anyone else on the planet but you. Because you had to be there in that one moment. And you'd have to understand all the crazy nuances and frustrations and miscommunications that led up to it. 

You weigh the probability that the whole thing could blow up in your face. The fact that most relationships fail. The absolute certainty that you will both get hurt. 

And then you grab the baseball bat and smash the scale and take a chance and jump anyway. 

Love might be the best thing in the world, but nobody ever said it was logical. 

"You're ruminating," she says, over the sound of the SUV's idling engine. 

"And savoring. I multitask." 

She tilts her head to the right and whispers, "Step on my neck?"

The driver taps on the horn. 

"As you wish." He bends down to give her one more kiss. "But only after you kick Joe Biden's inappropriately-touching patriarchal ass with your mystery and youth. And then figure out when you're coming back."

The driver gets out to load her bag into the trunk and she walks backward toward the curb. 

"How do you feel about mid-range chain hotels in early primary states? Or basement studio apartments?"

"Depends," he calls out across the sidewalk. "Can we actually be alone?" 

_It's not fair._ It's not fair that they can't have more than twenty-four hour increments. Since when is two consecutive days with someone too much to ask for?

The driver opens the backseat door and Ben thinks he sees her swipe at her eyes with the back of her hand as she climbs in. 

The tinted window lowers. 

"Just us," she calls as the SUV pulls away toward Bowery. "And probably spiders!" 

He'd forgotten to tell her that he'd stuffed his not-yet-laundered shirt into her suitcase. 

As he steps back into the elevator, his phone buzzes. 

 

 

GIRLFRIEND  
  
**Rey:** It's not a wild goose, but...  
  
**Rey sends: "Take a Chance on Me GIF with a strange seagull overlay**  
  


 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much reading, commenting, lurking...I'm honestly not sure if the next chapter will be the last. It could be! But I've tended to underestimate the word count on my outlines. In the meantime, I've been working on a short fic, [The Hinge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804376).
> 
> [Hudson Yards](https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2019/05/31/what-could-possibly-be-wrong-with-hudson-yards/#4c3414323b22) This is a huge new luxury real estate development on the west side of Manhattan. I think it's BULLSHIT. Of course Hux would live there. It would be about a 2 mile walk from NoHo. 
> 
> [Club Cumming](https://clubcummingnyc.com/) \- East Village venue owned by Alan Cumming.
> 
> Days of the week underwear - This is a When Harry Met Sally bit that I previously referenced in chapter 4 as part of the "notes app" conversation. Weirdy, I picked "Tuesday" and then when I searched for an image of days of the week underpants, the first thing I found was…[! FATE.](https://www.revolve.com/day-of-week-ruffle-bottom-undies/dp/WILD-WI150/?d=Womens&ref=popsugar.com)
> 
> [ AEANCE](https://aeance.com/) is a luxury athleisure brand that just looks like the Hux aesthetic to me. 
> 
> [Bread and Roses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses) is a slogan/phrase associated with the labor-related causes and inspired the logo of the Democratic Socialists of America.
> 
> The Keanu GIF is the same one from Ch 14. 
> 
> The thirsty things Rey shouts are mostly direct quotes from [The Cut](https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/adam-driver-big-boy-vanity-fair-cover-star-wars.html).
> 
> Baby oil, the hairbrush, and the spatula are call backs to the kinky shopping trip in Ch 8.
> 
> Deep dicking is kind of lifted from [_Chasing Amy_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_Amy), which is a film I've thought a lot about while writing this. 
> 
> Being legally obligated to get someone matzo ball soup is from a Ben rant in Ch 2 and was called back in Ch 15. 
> 
> The boombox is from this [beautiful selunchen art](https://twitter.com/selunchen/status/1074311345120702464). I tried to make the boombox canon SO MANY TIMES. It appeared in a cut scene I posted as [In Too Deep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313878). Holding the boombox over one's head is a [Say Anything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Y8tFQ01OY) reference. 
> 
> Speaking of John Cusack, the song from High Fidelity is ["I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx1x2dOKmDk)." Ben and Rey discussed that movie in Ch 6. This is ["Hold Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sha1XfHxw)." 
> 
> Here's Ben's [ grilled cheese inspo](https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/epoisses-grilled-cheese-and-pepper-jelly-sandwiches). 
> 
> [Pain D'Avignon Bakery](https://www.paindavignon-nyc.com/).
> 
> Ben freaking out about Rey messing around near a hot stove is a reference from [ a NSFW image Rey texted him in Ch 7](https://image.ibb.co/fr5urp/8747c28ece446c70e2fadece09107118.png). And I think it works as a [Mitan, Midi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16602782) tribute as well. 
> 
> [The Princess Bride novel](https://www.toddsnyder.com/collections/sweatpants/products/slim-jogger-sweatpant-black>%20Expensive%20sweatpants</a>.%20I%20spend%20a%20lot%20of%20time%20fake%20shopping%20for%20this%20version%20of%20Ben.%20%20%0A%0A<a%20href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Bride_\(novel\)) is written as if it's an abridgment of a longer tale by someone named S. Morgenstern. So the part Ben is reading at the end is almost like an author's note. 
> 
> Rob Reiner directed The Princess Bride _and_ When Harry Met Sally. 
> 
> "magical twilight hour in the burning desert"? Dior Sauvage cologne! 
> 
> [_Neo-Existentialism_](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Neo+Existentialism-p-9781509532483). 
> 
> [The Moth](https://www.housingworks.org/events/the-moth-storyslam-rules).
> 
> [Sea Island Cotton](https://shop.hanrousa.com/department/sea-island-cotton/).
> 
> Ben and Rey previously encountered spiders [when they kissed under a bridge](https://i.ibb.co/JycgQfn/tumblr-pm0xgv-Lkd41r900nf-540.png) in Ch 11 (captured here by BazineApologist).

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://slipgoingunder.tumblr.com/), where I primarily post extra-long fic recs. I'm also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/slipgoingunder) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/slipgoingunder). I'm probably slipgoingunder on any of future platforms, now and future, which is the advantage of a username comprised of obscure Cure lyrics.


End file.
